LAURENCE MACNAUGHTON

  • Do you ever wonder if maybe we make crucial life choices based on completely misunderstanding the world around us? One of the most common questions I’m asked in interviews is: What made you decide to become a writer? I tend…

  • I don’t know about other authors, but for me the moment when a book becomes “real” (and not just a story floating around in my imagination) is when I see the artwork for the book cover. Ever wondered what the…

  • This is where it starts to get real, people. You’re looking at a box full of advance reading copies of A Kiss Before Doomsday. That means, for the first time ever, the truth is out about Greyson. And Hellbringer. And…

  • It was a real honor to have the chance to sit down and talk with Electric Spec about what makes short stories so relevant today. As writers, short stories give us the opportunity to connect with readers in ways that…

  • It happens to every writer: you’re writing along when suddenly you need to go back and change some fact or detail. Because if you don’t fix it, the story won’t make sense. Should you stop writing at that moment to…

  • Which is better, self-publishing or a traditional publishing deal? If you’re a hands-on, DIY type of person with an entrepreneurial mindset, then you might be better suited to self-publishing. If you’d rather focus on the writing and not deal with…

  • I’m proud to say I’ve built a full-time career around writing, as both a novelist and a copywriter. That means splitting my time between the two. Usually I spend the morning writing novels, then spend the afternoon writing marketing and advertising…

  • I’m often asked what my writing process looks like. How do I write a book? It’s pretty simple, actually. (Not easy. But simple.) First, I start with the basics: Who are the good guys? What are they trying to do?…

  • Every writer I’ve ever talked to always wants to achieve more. (Even Hugh Howey.) We all want to reach more readers, sell more books, write better stories, and so on. All of us, writers or not, want to do more…

  • Believe it or not, IT HAPPENED ONE DOOMSDAY started out as a short story. I was struggling with another novel, so I switched gears and wrote a fun little story about this awkward wannabe sorceress who ends up breaking the…

From the blog

  • Want to Get Published? Read This.

    I’ve talked to dozens of best-selling authors about their early years, before they were published. And the similarities between them are striking. On average, they wrote about half a dozen unpublished manuscripts before they sold a novel. (By the way, this is what I call the Myth of the First Novel. Because it’s hardly ever…

  • Compelling Character Arcs in 4 Easy Steps

    I’ll let you in on a secret: readers want your character to change. They know, deep down, that your character is unhappy with the status quo at the beginning of your book. Something is terribly wrong in your character’s life, and things can’t keep going on this way. Something’s got to give. Readers fervently hope…