One thing writers have told me consistently is that knowing story structure and the major plot points—or points of a story—makes writing great stories easier. But what are the main points of a story? How can you get them into your books? I’ve personally found story structure to be incredibly helpful, not just in writing […]

Young adult novels have never been more popular. Some of my favorites began with the rise of Harry Potter and continued with hits like The Fault in Our Stars, The Hunger Games, and Divergent. If this is one of your favorite markets, you might wonder how to write a YA novel? Learning how to write […]

Summer is the season for road trips. Whether you are on the road yourself or only dreaming of a vacation, today we have some road trip writing prompts to make the time fly. Try one out today! This prompt was originally posted in June, 2012. Today, I’m traveling overseas and thought a few of you […]

You’ve probably heard people decry the use of the passive voice. “Avoid it at all costs!” they say. That’s a little misleading. Let’s look at active vs. passive voice and when to use each. First off, let’s understand what we mean when we’re talking about “voice” in a passive sentence versus an active voice sentence. […]

Have you ever experienced writer’s burnout? Although I call myself a writer, the last few months I haven’t been writing. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but somewhere between ghostwriting projects and blog posts, I just stopped working on my own writing projects. I couldn’t put words on a page, and when I did, the […]

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. […]