How to Structure Your Novel

If you are confused about how to structure your novel, I congratulate you. It means you at least realize a structure of some kind is necessary. That places you miles ahead of most beginning novelists, who typically plunge ahead into the writing, inspired by a cool initial idea. Many hours later, they realize they’re stuck. They have a story dozens or hundreds of pages long that rambles, repeats itself, backtracks, and generally loses its way. They thought the novel would just unfold of its own accord as they wrote it, then found themselves stunned when it stalled out stuck in the mud on some forsaken back road …

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How NOT to Use a Thesaurus—the Problem of Wrong Connotation

Here is a writing mistake I see often as a book editor. A client uses—or rather, misuses—hundred-dollar words to, supposedly, elevate her manuscript. She wants to dress the writing up, to make it sound professional, so she adds in fancy words from the thesaurus instead of going with simple words used in everyday speech. Let’s talk about how not to ... Read More

Two Secrets of Effective Fiction Writing

As a professional book editor and writing coach, one of the mistakes I often come across in the fiction writing of clients is the repetition of information the author already gave to the reader. For effective fiction writing, it’s important to remember that nothing is more boring to your reader than having to read the same information twice. Of course, ... Read More

The Cure for Writer’s Block

Do you need a cure for writer’s block? Do you find writing a chore? Do your words come out sounding awkward, while your ideas come out sounding vague or confused? You may be the victim of a bad writing habit that afflicts millions of people: trying to be creative and self-critical at the same time. The problem is this: the ... Read More

Narrative Writing: Definition and Examples

In case you’re wondering what is meant by “narrative writing,” the definition is pretty simple: It’s any kind of writing that tells a story. That’s because “narrative” means story. But be a little careful: narrative writing is not the same as fiction writing! Fiction writing is just one kind of narrative writing. Storytelling certainly occurs in fiction—it is the very ... Read More