“If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” — Ellen Johnson Sirleaf You may not realize it, but…
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Category Archives: For Writers
What Makes a Story Great?
Recently I’ve had a number of my students ask, “What makes a story great?” For example, what sets apart a…
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The Largest Self-publishing Survey Results
Instead of sending out my own writing tip today, I wanted to share a link to an article about the…
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What’s in a Word?
In the writing profession, the term word has a special meaning that most new writers don’t understand. If you see…
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Micro-plotting
Most of you are familiar with plot charts. You’ve heard of terms like inciting incident, try/fail cycles, climax, and denouement.…
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Winning the Writing Race
How fast do you write? Why? Have you ever asked yourself this? Many writers feel bad because they are too…
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Writing the All-time Bestselling Novel
Years ago while I was writing some little Star Wars books for Scholastic, my editor, David Levithan called and said…
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Finding the Guts to Write
For many authors, our fear of failure dissuades us from writing. I believe that this is the source of most…
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Grounding Your Reader
One reader asked me to discuss a bit about what I call “grounding” the reader. Quite simply, grounding is the…
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Why You Only Got an Honorable Mention
A while ago I promised to tell you why I reject good stories when I’m reading for Writers of the…
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