7 Tips to Avoid Overwriting
Repetition. Redundancy. Useless words. All fiction writers fall into the trap of overwriting. We’re lured by the desire to be…
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The 10 Most Important Questions to Ask about Your Scenes
In my work as a professional freelance copyeditor and critiquer for publishers, literary agents, and authors in six continents, I…
The Perils of Purple Prose
This post is an excerpt from the book 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing. Robin Patchen…
4 Key Ways to Improve Tension and Pacing in Your Novel
Pacing and tension aren’t always easy for writers to assess in their scenes. How can you tell if your scene…
Showing Your Scenes through Your Characters’ Senses
One of the reasons readers willingly immerse themselves in a story is to be transported. Whether it’s to another planet,…
A Deep Dive into POV
One of the most important decisions a writer has to make is regarding what POV she will use for her…
Handling Backstory in Dialogue in Your Opening Pages
So many new writers start their books with pages—even chapters—of backstory. They want to tell the reader all about the…
How Novelists Can Say More with Less
Less is more. More impacting. More riveting. More intriguing. Throughout history, marriages have failed and wars have been won or…
How Writers Can Spot Those Pesky Flaws in Their Fiction
All I see are a bunch of trees. That’s what a lot of my clients say to me. Well, actually,…
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