For years now, I’ve preached about The Five Requirements of Story. It’s been a pillar I’ve stood on and has driven everything from the way I edit and coach, to my personal writing and marketing. As much as I’ve had faith in these requirements, there has always been a...
Ever heard of the grief cycle? Most of us have, and all of us have experienced it. According to Kubler-Ross, there are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Formerly, the thought was that we cycle through these feelings one after the...
When you scroll through Pinterest or Instagram looking for ways to strengthen your characters, you may run into this common piece of advice: Give your character a quirk. According to dictionary.com, a quirk is a “peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality.” A...
Mystery or Romance? Sci-Fi or Fantasy? Literary or Non-sense? The single most important question asked is, “What’s my genre?” This can be a confusing topic for most contemporary writers. Your story is set in the future, contains a murder, and the protagonist gets...
One of the biggest frustrations I hear from new writers is that they can’t find the time to write. Because let’s face it, the writing and editing is the hard part, the imagining is where the fun is. For several months, life was tough. It was stressful, and it felt...
