- Apr 27, 2023
- 4 min
Seeing the Forest for the Trees: How to Approach an Editorial Letter
You’ve sent your manuscript to an editor for a developmental review and have just received your editorial letter back. You’re staring at...
- Jun 1, 2022
- 4 min
Back to the ... Present: The potential pitfalls of using flashbacks
There you are, reading along in a novel about thirty-five-year-old Amanda, when all of a sudden the author sends you back in time to a...
- Feb 15, 2022
- 4 min
It's Not (Only) about You: Writing a memoir that unites the universal and the particular
I love memoirs. I love reading them, and I also love editing them. There is something about helping authors to tell their own stories in...
- Jul 22, 2021
- 4 min
Inside Out: Using internal and external conflict to create a compelling story
As writers, we often hear that conflict is what makes a story. A character wants something and they face obstacles to getting it, which...
- Feb 15, 2021
- 4 min
Write What You Know: You Don't Need to Be An Alien to Write Science Fiction
Writers are often given the advice to write what they know. But have you ever really thought about what this means? Clearly, we can’t...
- Dec 3, 2020
- 4 min
A Hot Mess: Why you shouldn’t expect your first draft to be a work of art
I am currently writing the first draft of my latest story. I call it a story and not a novel or a short story because, to be honest, I...