Writing and Editing Tips

What is a scene? And how do you write a scene that works?

In this post, we're going to talk about how to write a well-structured scene and then I'm going to walk you through my favorite method for structuring a scene. After that, I’ll show you how this structure shows up in one of...

Did you know that over 80% of adults want to write a book but only 3% ever get to 'The End' of a draft? That means that 97% of people who want to write a book never finish. Why is that?

In this post, I'm we're going to explore why so many novels go unfinished, and what you can do to ensure you...

Romance is one of the best-selling genres in mass-market fiction with a large fan base of readers who just can’t get enough. In today’s post, I’m going to go over the ten conventions that must be present in your romance novel in order to satisfy those readers and to write a...

How do you start writing a book? Are there certain things you should think about first, second, and third? If you're anything like the writers I work with, you've probably wondered some version of these questions at one point or another.

In this post, I'm going to walk you through five questions...

Do you ever feel like you're not making as much progress with your writing as you'd like to be making?

As a developmental editor and book coach, I work with many, many writers who have been stuck at the starting line or in the middle of a draft and who are not reaching the goals they’ve...

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...

In the last post on story structure, we went over the first story milestone – the Hook. As a reminder, the Hook is your first opportunity to catch your reader’s attention and draw them into your story. But once you’ve hooked them, how do you keep their interest...

What should you do if you get stuck while writing a novel?

I've had a lot of writers reach out to me via email or in my private Facebook group asking this exact question. It’s also something that happens to all of us at one time or another -- we all get stuck at some point...