Scenes are the building blocks of stories. A scene has its own beginning, middle and end. The best scenes contain plot problems that push your protagonist to make a character-revealing decision that changes them or their world. To ensure your story is driving forward, with your character at the helm, [...]
Editing, rather than drafting, is usually the hardest and most time-intensive part of writing a book, especially since there are so many stages. Knowing what kind of editing you need, based on where you are in your writing journey, is crucial to saving you time and setting you up for success [...]
Banned books are those that have been challenged (by an individual or group) and removed from schools and/or libraries in order to 'protect children'. Sometimes, books have been banned out of genuine concern for students, other times groups have used the label of 'concern' to block students' exposure to diverse [...]
It is impossible to write a good book alone. Writing can feel like a solitary act that you must struggle through, hunched over at your computer desk, without any support. This is not only far from the truth, but it’s dangerous! Getting outside eyes on your work is critical to [...]
March #WritersRead Book Club Chat: Thursday, March 26th @ 7pm EST Join on Twitter! Details on how to join here This month we all read 'Children’s and middle grade stories' to see what we could learn about story craft from these books written for younger folks—especially since [...]
I hate losing momentum in my writing, so much so that I obsessively plan to prevent it. Today I'm going to share some tips for what to do when life happens and derails your writing. A few weeks ago I was on my honeymoon. I knew I wasn’t going to [...]
Writing can feel like a solitary act which you must struggle through, hunched over at your computer desk, entirely alone. This is far from the truth. In fact, outside eyes on your work are critical to telling the story you envision. Writers write for an audience just as [...]
Children's and middle grade stories have all the same elements of longer, more complicated novels, but in a condensed format. As writers, we can benefit from studying the way they're structured. Keeping stories short and simple is a bigger feat than you'd think. This month, we're THRILLED to welcome our [...]
February #WritersRead Book Club Chat: Thursday, February 27th @ 7pm EST On Twitter & Instagram Details on how to join here! For the #WritersRead book club this month, we read in the theme 'a book set in the future.' Through these stories, we imagine the future, [...]
Start with cultural values + environment. One of the reasons we read fantasy and science fiction is to experience new cultures and world views. We crave interesting governments, bizarre moral codes, and unique rituals. We’re fascinated by how these cultures survive in environments that are foreign to us—huge [...]
Great scenes build an exhilarating push and pull between a story’s plot and characters. Plot events drive characters to make choices, and their choices in turn shape future plot events. This wave of tension locks in readers, compelling them to read chapter after chapter. With the 15 key elements in this guide, you can claim this page-turning power as your own! We’ve included two analyzed, annotated scenes to show you how it all works.
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