Plot Cards

This is a little trick I came up with *all by myself!* 😁 This is a technique to use if you’re a pantser like me, and you might have a lot of key scenes already written down, but the flow of the story seems a little clunky overall. Create or buy a set of blank…

The Worst Possible Thing

It happens to all writers at some point: we’re on a roll, the words are flowing from our mind like some kind of nice, flowy thing; we start to fall in love with our story all over again. And then we hit it: a lull. We know we want to get from beginning to end,…

The Way Forward…

Here is a quick tip that has proven to be extremely helpful for me with my latest writing. On the horrible occasion when you suddenly find yourself stuck on a scene, before you resort to other “writer’s block tactics,” consider this: there is a problem a few sentences back. I can’t remember if I heard…

Copy Other Pieces by Hand

This is another unexpected slice of writing advice bestowed upon me by a creative writing professor. His instruction was for us to get into the proper mindset for a specific tone or style by taking someone else’s work and writing it out several times by hand. It sounds odd, and I was quite skeptical of…

Find Door #3

A lot of times, particularly when it comes to the climactic events of our stories, we are eventually offered two choices in what happens next. At its most basic formula, this looks like either the villain is going to win, or the hero is going to win—and usually it’s the hero. You typically want to…