WRITING TIPS

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...

I previously wrote about literary magazines and their submission process. However, in many general literary magazines that accept...

Last week, my short story titled The Perfect King was published in Issue IV of Juven Press, a youth literary magazine. Read the issue...

Happy Pride Month! In honor of pride month, this week’s post talks about the importance of diversity in literature and how to incorporate...

Stakes are the lifeblood of every story. If there’s nothing at stake for the characters, there’s nothing at stake for the readers. If...

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...

Descriptions transport readers to another world or time. You may never have seen Camp Half-Blood or Ketterdam or Narnia (we’re pretending...

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...

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...

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...

SPOILER ALERT: I talk about some famous plot twists below. Most spoilers are for very popular books, which I selected because I assume...

Almost every story can be traced back to some core plotline that can be found in other books of that type. Harry Potter is about the...

Research is one of those parts of the writing process that nobody thinks about. Nobody, that is, except writers. It’s so essential but...

A new month is just around the corner, and for writers, there’s something exceptionally special about this one. November is National...

The old mentor, the quest, the secret heir… These are all examples of common tropes in fantasy. If you’re an avid fantasy reader, you can...

Writing a novel is an incredibly rewarding experience. The ability to say, even if only to yourself, I sent characters on the journey of...

Last week’s post focused on literary elements, the large aspects of a story that come together to form a novel. This week, we look at the...

At heart, books are defined by the decisions of their characters. That’s why it is essential that characters have a clear moral code....

For most novels, a chapter is to a book like a word is to a sentence. Chapters are the building block of your novel and can be used to...

Dialogue, description, action, and narrative—all fiction novels will have some of each, but most writers will use some more than others....