Every writer needs to know their audience. Writing for “everyone” often means reaching no one, but tailoring your story for a specific readership builds clarity, resonance, and loyalty.
Success Points Highlights
Deadline-Driven Drama: How Time Pressure Shapes Story Stakes
If your scene feels slow, no matter how perfectly written, it may be missing urgency. Add a meaningful deadline and let it reshape your character’s actions, raise the stakes, and create real-time evolution that your reader can feel.
Beyond the Message: Why Advanced Writers Must Let Theme Emerge, Not Dictate
As writers, we often feel this burning need to say something important. We’ve lived. We’ve lost. We’ve witnessed. We’ve studied the human condition, wrestled with pain, and collected moments of truth we feel everyone should know. We feel impassioned. We want to take...
Brand Yourself Before Someone Else Does It
If you don’t define your brand, others will do it for you. In today’s world, writers aren’t just authors; they are brands. Learn how to take control of your identity, craft a clear message, and build a brand that reflects your true creative purpose.
Timeless Storytelling Lessons from Hadestown: What Writers Can Learn from the Broadway Hit
How Hadestown Uses Timeless Storytelling to Captivate and Inspire Writers As I left the performance of the Broadway touring production of Hadestown at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC), it left me thinking about the storytelling techniques that made it such...
Writing Early Readers
As many of you know, I’ve written a collection of children’s books. One of the companies I worked for is a massive producer and distributor of board books, picture books, early readers, and chapter books. For those of you who, like me, write for different age groups,...
For the Love of Graphic Novels
I’ve never written a graphic novel. “Why, then, are you writing about them?” you might ask. Because I love them. Sometimes, I think they get a short shake in the literary world. Because I’ve seen the smirks from my academic colleagues when I saw I love reading them....
The Difference Between a Personal and Academic Essay
There are seemingly erudite writers who not only publish writing we expect, such as novels, nonfiction books, and short stories but also write essays. I used to wonder what an essay was and how to write and sell one. After years of playing with this and publishing...
Tie Up the Loose Ends
It drives me crazy when things are left unfinished, including story endings. An excellent story ending includes many things. It is not simply the plot but also character resolutions and thematic finality. Tying up loose ends leaves me with closure and emotional...
Creativity is Living in the Now
“You’re very creative.” You said it before to someone. Probably several people have said it to you. People collectively think of creativity as something we are born with. That’s probably partly true. But no matter how well I was born to shoot basketball hoops, if I...