What is tone in writing and why does it matter? Tone is key to all communication. Think of the mother telling her disrespectful child, “Watch your tone, young man.” Or the sarcastic, humorous tone of a comedian performing stand up. Or the awe filled way people speak about their favorite musician, author, or actor. Or […]

Summer is the perfect time and season to practice writing and let it feel more like play than work. Today, I’ve collected a list of summer writing prompts: enough to write one per day of the season!  A few summers ago, I led summer writing camps for kids called Write Camp. It was a blast […]

Realistic dialogue can make your story. In fact, as Shakespeare knew, you can tell a whole story just through authentic, realistic dialogue. You’re probably thinking: “Easier said than done.” What makes dialogue difficult to do well? Good stories are about real people, and people in real life love to talk to each other. We are […]

Writing tension can be tricky. Have you ever received feedback that a scene is boring or should be cut, but you know that it’s crucial to the overall plot? What do you do? You probably need help writing tension, taking the scene from good to great. Let’s look at eight ways to increase the tension […]

So you want to know how to write a coming of age story?  Coming of age is one of the central themes in all of literature, but it’s also a specific type of story in its own right, one of the nine types of stories that we talk about in The Write Structure plot framework. […]

Some of the books that make the biggest impact on us as readers are the books we read as children and teens. If you want to write for teens, today we have some young adult YA writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing. Use one of these story ideas to write your own YA […]

First impressions are important, and no more so than when you pick up a book! Today we look at the famous first lines of books that have captured readers for years to see what we can learn about how to make the best first impression. Today we welcome guest author E.Q. Adair who recently shared […]

A common writing mistake happens when writers fail to use parallel forms in their verbs or other grammatical structures. But what are parallel verbs and how can you make sure you’re using the correct grammatical form? Today let’s learn how to avoid non-parallel verbs in your writing.  What is Parallelism or Parallel Structure?  Parallelism is […]

What type of writer are you? Are you a pantser who likes to write without much of a plan or a plotter who works mostly from an outline? Maybe you’re some combination of both. Let’s look at the three types of writers. There are all types of writers, but most writers fall into one of […]

Leaders understand that one of the best signs of a successful organization is a highly engaged workforce. When employees are motivated by their work, they perform better than their less-committed counterparts and naturally boost the organization’s bottom line. Yet what’s often overlooked is a critical element to employee engagement – “two-way communication” in the workplace. […]