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...

Welcome to Scribbler’s newest series — an interview with our subscription box‘s monthly author! Each month, we’ll interview the author of our featured book to help you learn a little more about them and their writing process. This month’s spotlight is on Kayla Cottingham. Her debut, My Dearest Darkest, was in our April box. You can find My Dearest Darkest for sale anywhere books are sold. WILDER GIRLS meets THE CRAFT in this Sapphic...

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...

Social media: a necessary evil in today’s world.  There are great aspects of social media; like allowing us to connect with people we might not meet otherwise or even building businesses. And who doesn’t love a good meme or hilarious TikTok? On the other hand, social media can have negative connotations or effects It can become addicting, and it is too easy to fall into the “comparison” trap. Between conversations...

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...

Congratulations to Connie Spyropoulos and Kristine Dulong on their winning submissions to our December 2021 synopsis contest! Kristine has volunteered to share their synopsis with the blog — we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. If you’re interested in submitting your work to Scribbler’s contests, take a look at our contest page for the next opportunity to submit. Bad Blood Lexi was a typical college student living in Atlantic...

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...