A Pep Talk

This little gem is going viral, and quickly.  You’ll see why. Writers need pep talks as much as any demographic niche out there, at least in terms of dreams and careers and dealing with rejection.  There are worse things to be, darker situations, certainly… but as one writer to another… … here’s a pep talk […]

Beware the Under-Cooked Story Concept

“I see this a lot.” I’m a little wary of opening with that, but I have to confess, it’s the first thing that keeps popping into my head when I want to address – again – the recurring and story-killing issue of writers using an undercooked “concept” as their opening point of reference for their […]

How to Engage Your Reader — A Guest Post by Matthew Turner

There was – apparently – a time when a writer merely wrote, sat back, and let the good times roll. That time is no more, at least not for 99% of us. These days writers are marketers, publishers, formatters, designers, and most importantly… engagers. To stand out from the crowd you need to communicate with […]

The Trifecta of Storytelling Power

Beyond Craft… Embracing Greatness  Oh what a tangled, slippery-sloped, viper-infested, self-sabotaging path we fiction writers tread. What seems so simple — because we read excellent stories all the time, and they really do seem, well, if not simple, then at least clear and clean, and therefore not beyond our means —  turns out to be […]