"I don't like your protagonist." If this is what your readers say, consider these five tips.
5 Ways to Make Your Protagonist More Likable
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Essential Reading: the Best Books of All Time in Each Genre
The best way to learn about great writing is to read great books. Writers need to read differently from other people. They can't just sit back at let the story wash over them. They need to be studying the work of their favorite authors and constantly asking themselves questions.
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How to Do Anthropomorphism Like Brian Jacques
Have you read any of the Redwall series by Brian Jacques? If you haven’t, it’s a delightful YA series featuring a host of animals behaving like humans, with characteristics, emotions, and sword fights straight out of the Hero’s Journey. And Good vs. Evil in every book. It’s full-on anthropomorphism wielded by a master.What is anthropomorphism?
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What You Need to Know About the Pacing Check
Pacing is what moves your story forward quickly and slows the action down so your readers can catch their breath and learn more about your character’s thoughts. Think about time unfolding in your novel and the time your scenes span. Now think about how pacing differs depending on what your story needs at the moment.
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Improving Your Proofreading Skills
Proofreading got you down? These tips will help ensure you never miss a thing.
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3 Commonly Misused Words (And How to Use Them Correctly)
Hey, we all make mistakes. Here's how to correctly use some of the most commonly misused words.
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In Defense of Passive Voice
Is passive voice always bad? Maybe not. Here are a few instances where you might want to use it.
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How to Write a Tragedy Like John Green
If you haven’t read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, don’t read this article any further. Go to your nearest library or bookstore and pick up a copy. Never has there been a novel with a heart-stopping understanding that tragedy waits at the end like The Fault in Our Stars.
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The Essential Reading List: Thrillers
If you haven’t been keeping up with us over the last several months, we’ve been covering a genre a month. We’re compiling an essential reading list of the top 25 best books in each category. Here’s what you’ve missed so far:The Best Ever Mystery NovelsThe Best Dystopian Novels of All TimeThe Best Sci-Fi Books of All TimeThe Best Historical Fiction Books of All TimeThe Essential Reading List: Horror
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Character Transformation: Change is in the Air
People change. Who you were as a young teenager is hopefully different from your adult self. Perhaps you changed and grew into a more mature, self-confident, and accomplished person thanks to your experiences in life. Or maybe you went through a nasty divorce and now can’t trust anyone. And think about the physical changes you’ve gone through since childhood.
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Do You Need a Degree to Be a Writer?
Could there be a more contentious question among the diverse set of writers in the world? Where you fall on the continuum of needing / not needing a degree depends on a few things:
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Overcoming Your Fear: Just Write
Does that title annoy you? If it were only that simple, right?
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How to Use the Dialogue Check
Dialogue is how your readers learn characters’ thoughts and sometimes their personality traits. You could have a quirky character who ends every sentence with, "ya see?" Or you could reveal back story through dialogue.
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Exclamation Point: Use It or Not?
The Atlantic posted a wonderful article from Ben Blatt who wrote the book Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing. In the article, Blatt posts the following pictograph that shows the number of exclamation points used by authors per 100,000 words written:
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Why a Good Cover Sells More Books ; Key Elements of a Selling Book Cover
Your book cover is the prime marketing tool for your book. Learn the basic elements and how to use them to your advantage to grab reader interest in your book.
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How to Write an A+ College Essay
Time in college is an awesome period of learning, which involves communicating ideas in writing. After all, how well you write is a valid indicator of intellectual achievement. However, many students find writing pretty daunting.
The thing is, like any other skills, writing is learnable with a lot of practice, patience, and focus. "You're born as a writer" is merely a myth, which can be proven.
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Why You Should Be Using ProWritingAid’s Google Chrome Extension
How much writing do you do around the internet, besides your manuscript or content for clients? Think about all the emails you send, or maybe you’re prolific on social media. Or maybe you run several blogs on WordPress. A more pressing question is: How do you check your online writing?
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Why This is Your Year to Win NaNoWriMo
This is your year to win NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). From November 1st through November 30th, hundreds of thousands of both seasoned and first-time writers will try to get down 50,000 words of a story. This doesn’t mean you’re writing a fully fleshed out, ready-to-publish novel. One thing it means is you have a deadline and a word count to hit—every single day.
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Why You Can’t Afford to Run Out of Ideas
Are you a fiction writer? Readers who love your work clamor for your next novel, right? And if you’re a copywriter, blogger, or ghostwriter, you make a day’s wage by writing content. Essentially, your world revolves around your ideas and how you put them on the page.
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Why Techies Should Become Better Writers
If you’re a techie, you may have groaned when reading the title. Or maybe you skipped right over this article completely. There’s a certain amount of pride when a techie says, "I don’t write." If that sounds like you, you’re discrediting an important, but easy to learn skill that can make a difference in your career some day: The ability to express yourself concisely so others understand you.
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