You’ve finished your draft and now you want to work with beta readers to get some feedback on your story, but where do you find them?  In this episode of the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast, I’m sitting down with the COO of The Spun Yarn, Julie Taylor, to talk about their beta reading and sens...

I recently sat down for a conversation with Anne Mortensen—one of the lovely writers I had the pleasure of working with a few years ago. And in our conversation, Anne shares what the writing, editing, and publishing process looked like for her two novels—The Truth Effect and The Arcadian Match.  ...

Once you've woven together your plot and characters—and developed an immersive setting—dialogue is the next piece of the storytelling puzzle to focus on. In this post, I’m sharing the 3 most common dialogue mistakes I see writers make—and how to avoid making them in your draft.     3 Common ...

If you want to write a novel that hooks a reader’s interest, you had better write an engaging first chapter. But how exactly do you do that? Since I’ve already provided resources on how to write a solid set of opening pages and the big mistakes to avoid when writing your opening pages, I thought...

You need to get readers asking questions to hook them into your story, but you don't want them asking the wrong questions or being so confused that they stop reading altogether. Many authors choose to withhold basic information from the reader in an effort to pique their curiosity, but this doesn...

I recently sat down for a conversation with one of the most wonderful and imaginative people I know, Edward J. Cembal. And in our conversation, Edward shares what his writing process looked like from having the spark of an idea, to writing a 60,000 word draft, to abandoning that draft to start a ...

Editing your first draft can feel like a daunting task. But if you follow the 4 phases of editing I laid out in this article, you’ll be able to edit your draft more efficiently and cut down on the overwhelm you’ll likely feel as you work through revisions. In this post, I’m taking you one step d...

How willing are you to start over if your story’s not working? How willing are you to say, “I didn’t quite nail this outline or this story or this scene… And to make it work, I will have to start over and rebuild it from the ground up. Am I willing to put my ego aside and start from ground zero,...

“Do I really need an author platform? What is an author platform, anyway?” I get asked these questions at least twice a week, and in today’s post, I’m sharing all the details! But the short answer is you don’t need an author platform. Nobody’s going to force you to build one. If you just want to...

Learning how to write impactful dialogue can take your writing from good to great. Once you've woven together your plot and characters, and developed an immersive setting, dialogue is the next thing on the list of things to focus on. In this post, I'm sharing my top 10 tips to help you write stro...

In today’s episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes with me throughout my entire week, and I’m going to share with you what I’m working on, what big projects I’m focused on right now, and basically, anything that happens during the week, including any fun or interesting insights that come up as ...

Mastering your mindset is just as important as learning the technical aspects of writing a novel. In today’s post, I’m sharing a round-up of mindset tips that will help you master your mindset and unlock your writing potential. I asked a handful of my peers to send in their favorite mindset tips...