Among the most important (and intimidating) decisions you'll make as a writer is how to begin your story. That opening moment sets the tone, establishes the world, and signals to your readers what kind of story they're stepping into. <...

Writing dialog can feel deceptively simple. After all, it's just people talking, right? But in far too many stories, characters are recapping the plot or revealing too much of what they're thinking or feeling. The dialogue is pure exposition, d...

Writing your story setting requires more than just pretty language, and does so much more than provide the physical setting. It anchors the reader in time and place while immersing them in a tactile sensory experience in every scene. <...

Revising a first draft can feel overwhelming. Where do you start? What do you cut? How do you keep your original vision alive How do you take all the moving parts and refine it into a more coherent, effective whole? In th...

Retrospective narrators have the power to tell your story with both raw immediacy and hard earned wisdom. This narrator doesn’t just recall the past – he or she reinterprets it.What makes it tricky is that you’re not just telling the sto...