Tag: Writing Tips
-
Yours Truly rocks the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers podcast
True story: at the RMFW conference this year, I bumped into my good friend Mark Stevens, an award-winning author and host of the Rocky Mountain Writer podcast. Somehow, we got to talking about weird musical instruments. I’ve just started playing one of the weirdest of all, the theremin. It’s the original electronic instrument, one that…
-
One Simple Trick to Write Everything Better
What if there was one single trick that could help you write better, faster, and easier than ever before? What if that trick could help you organize your thoughts, get started sooner, and finish every writing project, from a blog post to a novel? There is such a trick. And as a full-time writer, I…
-
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…
-
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?…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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?
-
4 Mistakes to Avoid When Building Suspense in Your Novel
Have you ever read a book that you just couldn’t put down? The whole time you were turning pages, you were probably desperate to discover the answer to a burning question. That’s the essence of suspense, and it makes readers devour your book. So how do you build suspense in your novel? Start by avoiding…
-
How to Write a Novel This Year: 10 Free How-To Articles
Something like 92% of all New Year’s resolutions are doomed to failure. If one of your goals is to write a novel this year, don’t let yourself become a statistic. Find out the answers to your questions and learn how to write your book. Since I joined the powerhouse faculty at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University,…
LAURENCE MACNAUGHTON 