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Hundreds of Helpful Articles

Hundreds of Helpful Articles

We have created hundreds of articles on topics all authors face in today’s literary landscape. Get help and advice on Writing, Marketing, Publishing, Social Networking, and more. Each article has a Comments section so you can read advice from other authors and leave your own.

Horror Protagonists We Love to Hate

There's a formula to fiction writing that most writers follow. The protagonist is good, the antagonist is bad, and everyone else is either along for the ride or collateral damage. In horror, this expectation is often flipped on its head. Horror fiction thrives on discomfort,...

How Not to Turn a Setting Into a Travelogue

One of the great joys of writing is building up settings that bring readers into the space that you see your characters in, whether that place exists in real life or is imagined. Yet, there’s a fine line between creating that environment and drowning a...

Mastering the Use of Time in Fiction

Time is one of the most unique aspects of storytelling that an author controls. Characters and settings are always going to be a little bit different in the mind and imagination of a reader, but time is the tool that nobody but its creator can...

The Debunking of Deus Ex Machina in Literature

Few things can make a reader throw their book at the wall as quickly as a too-tidy and convenient resolution. When a novel ends with a deus ex machina or an implausible coincidence, it often feels like a betrayal of trust between the author and...

Assault as a Driver for a Man’s Revenge Story

Storytelling in literature often reflects society’s evolving values. We've come a long way, particularly in how women are both depicted and received. Still, some tropes stubbornly linger despite their problematic implications. Among these is the use of a woman’s sexual assault as a plot device...

Six Ways to Ruin a Sex Scene in Fiction

Oh, baby! The sizzle factor in fiction has hit the mainstream and is currently at its all-time high. Gone are the days when readers were relegated to storage closets to jam in a chapter on their lunch break, and authors have even started to ditch...

Why Questions Are So Important for Middle Grade Novel Writers

Children are full of questions. From the time they speak their first words, children will persistently and constantly ask the annoying questions: why, what if, how come. Younger children ask the basic question of why, but middle graders are full of more in-depth questions, like what...

The Art of the First Line

The first line is a make-or-break moment. Most readers will hang in there for the whole first paragraph, or page, but like any first impression, you will not get a second chance. Over the weekend I binged on a Masterclass called James Patterson Teaches Writing,...

How Much Should You Write in a Day?

How much should you write in a day? Perhaps the question should read more like: how much do you write in a day? Or, does it really matter? For me, it’s more a matter of writing every day, not how much, not when or where,...

How Long Should a Chapter Be?

I think the shortest chapter I ever read was literally a blank page. You can’t get any shorter than that, now can you? I’ve also seen chapters that had only a single word, usually an exclamation, like “Help!” Certainly, the one-word chapter will catch the...