In today's post, I'm covering the conventions of the morality genre. If you want to write a morality story that works—and that satisfies fans of the genre—then you need to nail these character roles, settings, and micro events in your novel. I’m also going to show you how these key scenes manife...

One way to craft a compelling story is to include subplots—or secondary storylines that help create conflict and enhance your story’s theme.  But what are subplots? How do you come up with subplots for your story? And once you do brainstorm your subplots, where should they occur in the overall n...

The goal for most science fiction and fantasy authors is to create an immersive, three-dimensional setting for readers to lose themselves in—but how do you do it? In this post, I’m sharing my top 5 tips to help you create an engaging story world. Let’s dive in!   5 Worldbuilding Tips for Sci-...

Other than learning things like how to craft well-structured scenes or how to deliver what readers are expecting from a story in your genre or developing compelling and relatable characters or fleshing out three dimensional words…  Dialogue is the next thing on the list that you can tackle to ta...

I recently sat down for a conversation with one of the most inspirational people I know, Jamie Varon. And in our conversation, Jamie shares so many nuggets of wisdom about things like how she handles feedback (especially critical feedback), how she looks at writing (and especially the querying pr...

Which point of view should you choose for your novel? Should you use multiple points of view or stick to just one? Is it better to write in the past tense or present tense? Believe it or not, choosing which point of view to write your story from is one of the most important decisions to make whe...

I recently sat down for a conversation with a writer named Pauline Yates to talk about her writing, editing, and publishing journey. Pauline has just released her debut novel, Memories Don’t Lie, and in our conversation, we talk about how she went from dreaming up her idea (literally) to landing ...

Do you ever feel like if you just think and plan a little more, you’ll have your whole story figured out? Or if you just research a little bit longer, maybe you’ll unlock that one last worldbuilding element that’s been giving you trouble? Me too. I’m a recovering perfectionist—meaning that I kno...

I recently sat down for a conversation with Jennifer Lauer—one of the writers I have had the privilege of working with over the last few years—to talk about her writing, editing, and publishing journey.  And I’m so excited to share this episode with you today because it’s a very special day for ...

Do you want to write a story about a character who wants to improve their social or economic position?  In this post, I’m going to cover the six key scenes your status story needs to satisfy readers. I’m also going to show you how these conventions show up in the movie The Devil Wears Prada.  B...

Do you ever wish you could see a behind-the-scenes look at how other people write? Or that you could hear from other writers who have gone before you? Well, I have something super special for you today. I reached out to some of my Notes to Novel students and asked them to share the number one th...

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,...