How to Title Your Novel

So you're writing a novel. Or maybe you're simply planning your novel. But you can't figure out the right name for it. There could be so many titles! Should you use a short title or a long one? Should it incorporate the made up names you've created or would that be too confusing? How do …

Embrace Failure

Failure hurts. You attempt something, and you don't successfully complete what you tried. But I just want to say--that's okay. Failure is one more step to success. You tried, you didn't complete what you tried, which means you can now learn from your failure and try again. Here's a quick secret (which isn't actually even …

Tropes and Cliches: Which to Use in Writing?

Hey, everyone! Today I wanted to talk about the differences between Tropes and Cliches. I feel like some people don't take the time to figure out exactly what these are, and assume that they're the same thing. That is definitely not true. So let's jump right in! What is a Trope? A trope is a …

Words are Powerful

For a long, long time, words have been spoken, written down, and have transferred meaning and emotions to people all over the world. Writing is powerful. Writing can break someone down, or build someone up. Even a paragraph of words could resonate with one person and change their perspective on life forever. Even though there …

Improve Description in Your Writing With These 3 Tips

Do you ever struggle writing description that keeps your reader’s attention? Would you like to be able to write beautiful, vivid descriptions that lay out a wonderful, fascinating scene before the people who are reading your story? Now, I’m not saying I’m a master at this and you aren’t! I’m still learning how to write …

The Importance and Power of the Climax

Ah, the climax. The part that everyone always gets to when reading a book. Unless they set the book down. Or the book doesn't have a climax. Whiiich would be weird. Almost every book has a climax, the part of the book that reveals much of the secrets that come up throughout the story, brings …

Why I Didn’t Do NaNo 2019 (And Why It’s Okay Not To)

After I learned that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) was a thing, I've always felt a sort of pressure each year November comes. I feel like, "Well, everyone else is doing it, and it makes you a better writer, so I should be participating this year and writing 50,000 words in thirty days." But, the …

5 Ways to Craft Your Characters With Your Themes

Sometimes when we write the themes to our stories, we don’t consider the vast subject of crafting our characters to fit our theme. Many times we craft them separately, first creating the theme, and then creating the characters (or vice-versa). That is a big mistake. Whenever you’re crafting your characters, you should always have the …

How to Write on a Consistent Schedule

There are times when something is making you not want to write. It might be procrastination. It might be writer’s block. It might be sheer stress, or discouragement, or timidness, or world-building problems, or...anything! Whatever it is, it always feels like there’s just this weight on you whenever you think about writing. That happens a …

What to do When You Can’t Hit 50,000 Words

The outline of your story is done! You’ve planned all the chapters! It should be long enough to hit 50,000 words and be officially called a novel. Maybe it will even hit 60 or 70 thousand! You sit down, excited, and start writing. You write and write and write, day after day, working hard, putting …