Success Points Highlights
Patience: The Invisible Skill That Builds Every Writing Career
Every writer wants to move faster. We want to hurry to finish our current draft, to sign a deal with an agent or publisher, to see our book on the shelf, to build a colossal number of social media followers, to make it on a bestseller list, to win an award, our list...
Build a Platform: Developing a Presence That Connects
Many writers and marketing experts think of a platform as a box a writer stands upon and shouts from. Nothing could be further from the truth. A platform is simple. Its full extent is the bridge between your work and your potential reader. Whether you are an emerging...
Show, Don’t Tell: Use Sensory Details to Immerse Readers in Your Story
By nature, we see what happens in a story and hear some of it in the dialogue. But every reader also wants to feel the story in the emotions, to also hear the footsteps in the attic above in the empty house, to smell the oncoming rain in the ozone, then smell the...
Write a Strong Synopsis: Practice Writing Effective Summaries of Your Work for Agents and Publishers
A synopsis is often misunderstood as a summary of a story. That’s not its purpose. Its point is to prove to someone else (agent, editor, publisher, bookseller, reader) that you understand story, not specifically the story, but how to build a story. It’s a preview...
Reading to Write: Why Great Writers Are Always Great Readers & How to Be Both
Writers tickle our senses and imaginations across space and sometimes time. This is how writing and reading work. For most, it’s a sensory and passive experience. For writers who are reading, it should be more. Every page we turn—good writing, bad writing—can teach us...
Use Writing Prompts to Reignite Creativity
Every writer, regardless of their experience, occasionally looks at a blank screen and the words just don’t come. I used to think writing prompts were a silly waste of time. I’ve since learned differently. Anything that can get you typing and your brain cells firing...
Discipline: Commit to Writing Consistently, Even When You Don’t Feel Inspired
Discipline is the quiet, unglamorous engine beneath the hood of every writer’s life. Inspiration is always fun and welcome, but it’s like lightning: you can’t get it to strike on schedule or make it hit you. A career writer can’t expect to build a solid body of work...
Understand Copyright Laws
Writers have many misconceptions about copyright and copyright law. Whole college courses have been designed just on this subject. What I’d like to do is distill the most common aspects of copyright law here, so at least you have a working knowledge of the...
Know Your Audience
Almost everyone who writes something and sees it published wants someone to read it. For example, I would like you to read this blog. Everything we write that we share exists in a relationship: you and the reader. A writer who does not have an audience or does not...
‘Why’ You Write Is ‘Why’ They’ll Keep Reading
In this essay, I want us to reconnect with our core intents. Every writer hits that moment: the plot stalls, the characters go quiet, the pages stop piling up. And, if you’re honest, pantser or plotter, it’s not just the book that is stuck. You’re stuck! How could...
Why I Rewrote My First Chapter Six Times
I’m going to take you behind the scenes with this essay. This morning, I rewrote the opening of my new book—again, for the sixth time. I think I’m getting close. I don’t usually count my rewrites, but this one is different. The first chapter has been a thorn in my...
Crafting Strong Protagonists That Hook Readers Instantly
If your story feels like it is stalling right from the first page, your problem might not be your plot. Before you rush off to rewrite the progression of the first chapter or maybe insert one of those unnecessary prologues, take a moment and look at your protagonist’s...