Learning Story Beats Through Audiobooks

I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks lately, and through listening I’ve come to a better understanding of story beats. In reading, because it takes me so long or because I’m just not paying attention to the length of the story or where I’m at, I struggle to notice similarities in stories regarding story...

Story Basics: Plot

I think it's important for everyone to at least know a few basics about their plot before they start writing. It greatly helps the writing process and how your writing flows, particularly in drafting but also in editing. One very important thing to know from the start is your genre! Each genre has its own...

How To Write 10k Words In A Day

A while back I wrote 10k in a day, something I never thought I'd be able to do, but this is how I did it!Keep in mind that these tips can be used for writing in general, and you may not actually write 10k words in a day because that is a whole lot of...

How To Write A Clean First Draft

I've been writing seriously for over four years now, and I've written nearly seven firsts drafts at this point. I've gotten my system down, and I've learned how to write clean first drafts that speed up my writing process as a whole because editing doesn't take quite as long. What a clean first draft does...

NaNo Help: Plot

Characters may be the most important thing in writing (at least in my opinion), but plot is literally what stories are about. Plot is the backbone of a story, and without a plot you don't really have much. Plot is what pushes your characters forward, its what keeps the story moving, and gives it purpose....

NaNo Help: Characters

Characters are the most important element of story telling, at least in my opinion. Without them, nothing would be worth reading. To write a good novel, you have to have great characters, and you have to know them well. And with NaNoWriMo, when you're trying to write an entire novel in a month, its extremely...

NaNoWriMo 101

It's October now, which means November is coming up fast, and with it, NaNoWriMo!Over the coming weeks, I'll be writing a series of blog posts to help you with NaNoWriMo, should you choose to participate. But today, the basics. What Is NaNoWriMo? First off, what the heck is NaNoWriMo? Honestly, it a good question, because...

Preptober!!

Today is the first day of October, and for those of us who are doing NaNoWriMo, that means the start of Preptober! You may be wondering what Preptober is, because you've never heard of it before. I hadn't heard of it until last year either. Preptober is the month before NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month,...

Outlining: Why, How, and My Method

There are three different types of writers, the plotters, the plansters, and the pantsers. Each one writes theirs stories in a different way. Plotters plot out their story before they start writing, so they have a clear path they can take when working through their novel. Pantsers have no plan, they write by the seat...

Trusting Your Creative Muse And When To Get Feedback

I see it all the time. People thinking their pacing is too fast, or too slow, but not trusting themselves on this feeling. Or asking other what they should do with a character because they want to do this one thing but they're not sure if it's the right move. But here's the thing. It's...