In today’s episode, we’re going to do something fun and a little different. Since we’re nearing the end of 2022, I thought it would be fun to continue with last week’s theme of lessons learned over the last twelve months. I hope some of the lessons you’ve learned this year came from this podcast,...

I recently sat down for a conversation with James Beswick—one of the writers who took my Notes to Novel course earlier this year—to talk about his outlining, writing, and editing journey over the last 12 months. To give you a quick overview of James’s amazing accomplishments, he enrolled in the ...

In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the conventions of the crime genre. So, these are the character roles, settings, and events that need to be present in a crime story in order for it to work and to satisfy fans of the genre.  I’m also going to show you how these genre conventions sho...

If you’re like most of the writers I work with, getting to the end of a first draft feels both exciting and terrifying at the same time. You’ve probably been working on this story for x-amount of months (or maybe even years!) and all you want is for the story you wrote to (eventually) match the v...

I recently sat down for a conversation with Stefanie Medrek—one of the writers I have the immense pleasure of working with—to talk about her writing, editing, and publishing journey over the last few years. To give you a quick overview of Stefanie’s amazing accomplishments, she wrote a first dra...

In today's post, I'm going to walk you through the ten action genre conventions. So, these are the character roles, settings, and events that need to be present in an action story in order for it to work and to satisfy fans of the genre.  I’m also going to show you how these action genre convent...

It's almost time to ring in the new year, so to celebrate, I thought it would be fun to continue with last week’s theme of lessons learned over the last year.  So, as we inch our way closer to counting down until the ball drops, I wanted to count down some of the best clips from the Fiction Writ...

In today's post, I'm covering the obligatory scenes of the action genre. If you want to write an exciting action story that works -- and that satisfies fans of the genre -- then you need to nail these six key scenes in your novel. I’m also going to show you how these key scenes manifest in three...

If you want to buy a house or a car, it's common practice to create some kind of strategic plan for getting there, right? You save up some money, you do some research, and eventually, you accomplish your goal -- you buy the house, or you buy the car. So, why is it that when it comes to writing, ...

Do you ever wish you could peek inside of another person's writing life? In today's podcast episode and blog post, I thought it would be fun to share some of the key takeaways I learned from coaching writers this year. My hope is that you'll be able to reap some of the benefits from these 'a-h...

In today's post, I'm covering the obligatory scenes of the performance genre. I’m also going to show you how these key scenes manifest in three popular movies—The Mighty Ducks, Cool Runnings, and The Karate Kid. Why movies? Why not books? Well, the simple answer is that movies require less tim...

In today's post, I'm covering the conventions of the performance genre. I’m also going to show you how these conventions manifest in three popular movies—The Mighty Ducks, Cool Runnings, and The Karate Kid. Why movies? Why not books? Well, the simple answer is that movies require less time inv...