Research. The word alone is like a strike of lightning for some writers, already dreaming of stone-faced castles in the Highlands or a handsome Scotsman riding through the glen (hello, Jamie Fraser). For these literary souls, the research phase deepens their storytelling. For others, the thought of fifty-seven open tabs on their browser is already too much to bear. Forget about trying to unearth which type of undergarments were typically...

In an ideal world, we would all have a fabulous, productive writing session easily every day. But unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.  Writing isn’t the only thing going on in our lives, and sometimes seasons of life come up that make it necessary to take a short break from writing. Last year my husband and I were house hunting (very stressful!) and then moving ourselves and our two...

When I set out to start querying for the first time, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew the basic idea — you find an agent, send a query letter, and hope for the best — but I hadn’t the faintest clue how to begin or what that process really looked like. After doing a bunch of research and slogging through the query trenches for the past...

If you want to snag the attention of an agent, your book’s concept needs to be irresistible. But what’s going to buoy your book up above the other great concepts in the submission pile is the quality of your writing. And I don’t just mean polished writing. I mean writing that is unique and captivating. If you want to give yourself a leg up, I suggest you add a revision...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog article discussing the foundation you need to lay for each of your novel’s scenes. This foundation includes knowing your scene’s purpose, keying into the characters’ motivations, and making sure the setting strikes the intended mood. But there’s a lot more to painting a memorable scene than simply constructing a solid foundation. With that in place, it’s time to start layering substance on top of...

The inciting incident in your novel is going to be the event, early in the story, that will interrupt life-as-we-know-it for your protagonist. In general, you might think of the inciting incident as the kick-off to the plot. It will present your character with a choice from which they cannot turn back. A commonly-used example of an inciting incident is in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when Hagrid tells Harry he’s...

When I started writing my first novel, I had no idea how to block my story into scenes or that I even needed to structure it that way. I had lots of ideas for disconnected “scenes” I wanted to include, but I viewed them like crucial events and not as true scenes with their own individual beginnings, middles, and ends. The end result was lackluster, sloppy, and indefinite. Without knowing...

Before I get into strategies for writing a prologue, I want to address the whole prologue thing. Basically, agents like them or hate them. Readers love them or skip them. People have strong feelings about prologues and you should be aware of the general discussion before you publish a book with one or start sending out queries. So, let’s talk briefly about why some agents don’t like them and why a...