#19: Make Your Characters Sympathetic - Katherine Cowley

In a letter to her niece Fanny Knight in March 1817, Jane Austen mentioned that she had a new novel, nearing readiness for publication: “You will not like it, so you need not be impatient. You may perhaps like the Heroine, as she is almost too good for me.”

katherinecowley.com

6 steps to writing a plot twist your readers will gasp over

A great plot twist can send shockwaves across your audience and beyond. Here's how to do just that.

nearlycomplete.net

It's Great to Suck at Writing

Author Karen Rinaldi sucks at surfing, but she continues to dedicate hours to it anyway, and she explains why we should also be okay with failure in many forms—even our writing.

writersdigest.com

Five Tips for Reviving Bland Prose

Readers want entertaining narration, but how do you make it entertaining?

mythcreants.com

10 Pieces of Bad Writing Advice (and How to Fix Them)

We’ve all been there. Some well-meaning mentor, professor, or internet guru drops a golden nugget of writing wisdom, and you cling to it like a life raft. But here’s the thing: a lot of so-called "good advice" is actually garbage; either outdated, misunderstood, or just plain counterproductive. 

litreactor.com

How To Take Control Of Writing In The Future Tense

Writing in the future tense uses a range of grammar structures. Here are 17 basic forms with examples to help you add variety to your writing.

justpublishingadvice.com

Verbal Cliches To Stay Away From - Springhole.net

Verbal cliches are particular words or turns of phrase that end up everywhere and repeated a lot. While there's nothing necessarily story-ruining about them, it's not a bad idea to try to avoid them for a couple of reasons: It makes your writing a little more likely to stand out from the crowd, and it encourages you to think in new directions. So here's a list of verbal cliches to consider dropping from your vocabulary unless they're absolutely necessary.

springhole.net

Kicking "Great" Dialogue up to "Killer" Dialogue (with Interstellar)

8 tricks to help take your dialogue up to level awesome.

septembercfawkes.com

#14: Incorporate Backstory Strategically - Katherine Cowley

Backstory is history and information about what happens before the story. Backstory is typically related to the characters, the situation, and the world in which they live.

katherinecowley.com

Bad Advice Writers Get From Unhelpful Friends

Bad advice may come from friendly people, but it can hurt your writing career. Here are 10 bits of bad advice to ignore.

annerallen.com

Historic Portland home where Ursula K. Le Guin wrote her greatest works gains national recognition - The Portland Tribune

One of Portland’s most important literary landmarks has earned national recognition. The Queen Anne home where acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin lived and wrote for nearly six decades has […]

portlandtribune.com

Why The Podcast Is Moving To Wednesdays, And 7 Tips for Sustainable Creativity | The Creative Penn

After more than a decade of releasing this show on Mondays, I’m moving it to Wednesdays, and this is the first episode of the new time slot. On the one hand, this might sound like nothing at all, but ...

thecreativepenn.com

'Cause the Scammers Gonna Scam, Scam, Scam

There Have Always Been Scammers Taking Advantage of Writers

starkreflections.substack.com

Hidden Architecture: Using Structure to Reinforce Story

Novelist Wendelin Van Draanen offers advice on how to choose the best story structure for your novels and provides compelling examples from her award-winning books.

writersdigest.com

Ninety-Nine Words to Seek and Destroy

Cutting clutter is an essential part of penning powerful prose.

mythcreants.com

598 – Structuring Horror

Spoooooooky structure!

mythcreants.com

7 Supporting Character Types Every Writer Should Know

Discover seven supporting character archetypes that add conflict, guidance, and depth while strengthening your novel's plot.

writerswrite.co.za

Mastering Setting in Fiction | The Writer

Author Sarah Van Arsdale discusses setting in fiction: How fully developed settings can help writers deepen both characters and plot.

writermag.com

What My Tattoo Artist Taught Me About Writing Critique

I recently put in some time in the chair with my favorite tattoo artist. This sounds like I have a lot of tattoos; I don’t. I have three, one of which is a little gray sun on my neck that I picked right off the board one random day when I was nineteen with fifty bucks in my pocket. I found this artist much the same way I found my sweet little sun—I drove around for a while with an idea and some cash until I got to a tattoo parlor with some cool designs in the window. You know, real scientific. 

shar.es

Limiting Adjectives: What They Are and How to Use Them

We use limiting adjectives a lot in writing to modify nouns by including specific or precise information about them.

justpublishingadvice.com

Literary Birthday – 25 July – Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth MacKintosh, a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels.

writerswrite.co.za