
Don’t Just Sit There!: Giving your characters agency
Imagine that your best friend invites you over because she needs some advice. She’s finally decided to leave the job she’s been...

Say What?: Giving your characters their own unique voice
Think of the characters from your current work in progress. Are they all women (or men)? Do they all have blond hair? Did they all get a...

Nip and Tuck: How you can help bring down the cost of editing your book
Hang out on any writing-related website, and you’ll see authors discussing the cost of editing. While plenty of these authors feel the...

Walking and Reaching and Shrugging, Oh My!: Why you shouldn’t overdo stage direction
In fiction, characters need to move about. They might be moving from one city to another, from uptown to downtown, or across the room....

The Importance of Professional Editing
As authors prepare to publish their books, they are faced with the question of whether or not to pay a professional editor to help polish...

Say What?: Maintaining the author’s voice in an edit
There is a lot of talk in the writing and editing fields about an author’s voice and how to maintain it in an edit. This is a vital part...

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Keys to writing an effective memoir
My bookshelf and my Kindle are full of memoirs. Whether they allow me into the heart of someone who is recovering from a terrible loss or...

Not a Moment Too Soon: When is the best time for a developmental edit?
A developmental edit is an edit that focuses on story-level concerns such as plot, pacing, character development, and point of view....

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen: Why you shouldn’t overload your novel with characters
Writers frequently ask how many characters they should have in their novel. Unfortunately, that’s one of those questions that doesn’t...

Truly, Madly, Deeply: Considering the use of adverbs
Stephen King once said, “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” And while this might be a titch hyperbolic, he does have a...