Yessica Jain
Reducing Your Word Count: Tips for Overwriters
Writers tend to fall into two categories: underwriters and overwriters. No, there’s no category for the perfect writer because it is...
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WRITING TIPS
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Yessica Jain
- Jan 5
Story Beginnings: Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Last week, I focused on story endings, but before every ending comes a beginning. A strong hook is an important part of all stories....
Yessica Jain
- Dec 29, 2022
Types of Story Endings
With the end of the year just around the corner, I wanted to spend this post focusing on story endings. Like everything with writing,...
Yessica Jain
- Dec 15, 2022
Mixing Genres
Stories are defined by their genres—often more so than their characters or their plot. Whether you want to publish your story or simply...
Yessica Jain
- Dec 8, 2022
Revising Your Novel’s First Draft
A week after the end of NaNoWriMo, you may have a 50,000-word novel lying around. What next? While revising and editing may seem...
Yessica Jain
- Oct 13, 2022
Balancing Subplots
Without a plot, a story doesn’t exist. But with only one plot, a good story rarely exists. That’s why subplots exist. This week’s post is...
Yessica Jain
- Sep 22, 2022
Youth Literary Magazines: A List
I previously wrote about literary magazines and their submission process. However, in many general literary magazines that accept...
Yessica Jain
- Aug 25, 2022
Screenwriting: Layout & Formatting
Screenwriting—the art of writing screenplays for films or TV shows—can be really exciting. It’s a great way to exercise your description...
Yessica Jain
- Jul 14, 2022
Pre-Readers: What They Are & What to Ask Them About
You finish your novel. Now what? While it can be tempting to send it to editors right away or even jump to literary agents, there’s an...
Yessica Jain
- Jun 23, 2022
Worldbuilding for Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Speculative Fiction
What makes a good story? Yes, you need characters and plotlines that intrigue your readers. But, importantly, setting is also one of the...
Yessica Jain
- May 12, 2022
Types of Books Series
Think of three books. Odds are, at least one of them is part of a series. Book series give readers more of what they love, while letting...
Tai Nakamura
- May 5, 2022
Connecting to Your Writing
Experimentation is the key to great writing, so it's important to sometimes step out of your comfort zone to give the reader more ways to...
Yessica Jain
- Apr 28, 2022
Writing Descriptions that Transport Readers
Descriptions transport readers to another world or time. You may never have seen Camp Half-Blood or Ketterdam or Narnia (we’re pretending...
Yessica Jain
- Mar 24, 2022
Writing Humor: Making Your Audience Laugh
A little laughter goes a long way when your characters and readers are stressing about an impending war. Almost every genre can do with a...
Yessica Jain
- Mar 10, 2022
Writing the End of a Story
While the beginning of a story sets up the world, people, and themes, the end wraps it all together. It’s either a reward or a punishment...
Yessica Jain
- Mar 3, 2022
Writing the First Chapter
It’s really easy to put down a book after reading a few pages, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to do so as you go on. Once...
Yessica Jain
- Feb 24, 2022
Target Audience Age Range: Who is Your Book For?
When writing their first draft, some authors keep their future readers in mind at all times and others only write because they need to...
Yessica Jain
- Feb 17, 2022
Plot Twists
SPOILER ALERT: I talk about some famous plot twists below. Most spoilers are for very popular books, which I selected because I assume...
Yessica Jain
- Feb 10, 2022
Foreshadowing: Types & Techniques
Why is it that the best plot twists always seem to make sense but you never could have predicted them? Foreshadowing is a literary device...
Yessica Jain
- Jan 27, 2022
Adverbs: Are They Evil?
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs,” said Stephen King. Many writers have sworn off adverbs entirely and many others stand by them...
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