As writers, we don’t just use words to state facts but to make our readers feel our characters’ experiences. We want our writing to be evocative and immersive. In other words, we want our prose to sound pretty. How exactly, though, do we achieve well-crafted prose?...
The stories we tell have power. We tell stories to impart knowledge—to show each other how the world works, what dangers to be wary of, and what moral convictions to stand firm in. Stories are not just fluffy entertainment to pass the time. They are modes of...
Names, as the symbols that represent our identity, are both arbitrary and incredibly meaningful at the same time. When writing my own characters, I love finding the perfect name that not only sounds good but also has an underlying meaning that reflects something...
In my last post, I covered the four pillars of plot. If you haven’t read that post yet, I recommend you give it a read before continuing on with this post. Here, I’ll show you how you can use those four pillars to plot your story’s three acts. Before we start, keep...
There is a concept floating around the writing community that I think is a bit problematic. It’s the idea that you’re either a pantser or a planner. You either outline every event in detail before you start writing or you fly by the seat of your pants and improvise...
Tense is a subtle little narrative choice that is easy to forget about when you start writing. Then you go back, reread your first draft, and discover that an inconsistent tense is tripping you up and giving you a lot of finicky editing to do. Tense is another...
Before I started my own editing business, I associated the word marketing with manipulation and greed. I think a lot of people carry that association with marketing, especially creatives who make services and content primarily to inspire or teach or just feeds...
How you frame your story powerfully influences the reader’s experience of it. As a writer, you need to know exactly how that framing works and what tools you can use to create a narrative voice that serves your story well. In this series, I go over four key tools...
How you frame your story powerfully influences the reader’s experience of it. As a writer, you need to know exactly how that framing works and what tools you can use to create a narrative voice that serves your story well. In this series, I’ll go over four key...