Category: For Writers
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Learn All of My Writing Secrets at Colorado Gold
Are you going to the RMFW Colorado Gold 2018 conference? Don’t miss this chance to pick my brain about all things related to urban fantasy, writing action scenes, and creating monsters. Here’s where you can find me: Birds of a Feather: Urban Fantasy panel Saturday 10am | Winter Park What exactly is urban fantasy? What…
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6 Ways to Double Your Writing Speed
“How can I find the time to write?” said every aspiring author ever. But time is only half of the equation. The other half is speed. The faster you write, the faster you will finish your story or novel and get it published. Can you learn how to write twice as fast, without sacrificing quality?…
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Writing Advice for Teens
Recently, I received an email from a teen writer who had decided to write a novel, but she was struggling to find the time. Between school, homework, music lessons, and other commitments, she didn’t know when she would actually be able to write. But she was smart to ask for help. She had three specific…
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6 Secrets of Science Fiction and Fantasy World Building
How do you, as a writer, build a new world that fascinates your readers, draws them in, and makes them want to come back for more? If you write fantasy, science fiction, or horror, you need to do your world building the right way. I’ve revealed the shortcuts and tips you should use — and…
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Create Better Characters in 6 Easy Steps
Readers may be intrigued by a good plot. But if your characters are interesting, readers will remember them long after they close the book. It can be tough to create fully fleshed-out, three-dimensional characters. I explain how to do it over at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog. P.S. Get more free writing tips when…
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Why You Should Never Be Afraid to Write
One day, almost exactly 10 years ago, I walked into a bookstore in Hawaii and discovered something fascinating. It was an overly large magazine, with big glossy pages that flopped over in the humid air, and it was chock-full of articles on how to write. The magazine was called Writers’ Forum. It was from the…
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Plot Problem? Fix It Fast with a Retcon
Sooner or later, every story runs into a little hiccup. As you write, you’ll discover that certain facts don’t fit together anymore. Maybe a character needs to be changed or removed. Maybe you find a plot hole big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Somewhere, in the inner workings of your story, something has…
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7 Ways to Master “Show, Don’t Tell”
“Show, Don’t Tell” is probably the most often-repeated writing advice in the world. It means that you shouldn’t dump a load of information in the middle of the page, because it will stop your story dead. But it’s easy to fix that problem, if you know how. Here are seven different ways that you can…
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Want to Be a Better Writer? Read This.
I’ve talked to hundreds of best-selling authors about their early years, before they were published. By and large, they wrote about half a dozen unpublished manuscripts before they sold their “first” novel. Aside from cranking out thousands of pages of prose, how do you learn the writing skills you need to improve over time?
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How to Use Rejection to Grow Stronger
This is a true story. Not long ago, an aspiring writer reached out to me for advice on how to deal with the worst kind of rejection. Delia (not her real name) had decided once and for all to finally write that book she’d been dreaming about for years. And she did it – she…
LAURENCE MACNAUGHTON 