Your Next Draft

Genre isn’t what you think it is. Here’s how to use it better.

Genre. Let me guess:

It’s the bane of your existence. A convoluted soup of arbitrary descriptors that almost but not quite mean the same thing. Sci fi or fantasy? Paranormal or supernatural? Upmarket or book club? Do words even have meaning?

Or, it’s a restrictive box with tropes and conventions you feel like you need to cross off a checklist, until your story is more “pai...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a fiction writer in possession of a brilliant story must craft a captivating opening line.

No pressure, right?

Your opening line is your story’s first impression. Agents, editors, and even readers decide fast whether they want to keep reading or drop the book altogether. And yes, they can make that judgment in as little as the very first sentence.

So your opening line is doing some heavy, he...

Are your readers bored? Disappointed? Confused? Here's what that tells you about your story's middle.

You’re stuck in the messy middle. Languishing in the doldrums of your story. The inciting incident is long past, the climax is so far ahead you can’t see it over the horizon, and you’re drifting, lost at sea.

What is actually supposed to happen here?

Where did your plot momentum go?

Why do your pages feel full of stuff, and y...

You don’t need more filler. You need better progressive complications.

Your inciting incident hooks your readers and promises them a story they’ll love.

And then comes the middle.

The messy middle. The quiet doldrums of your story, where plot momentum goes to die.

Where your characters wander, your conflict blurs, and you start to wonder if any of it is working.

So what do you do? Add some “stuff that happens” and hope it holds your rea...

Your first chapter has a monumental task: to make potential readers care about your book right away and hook them to keep reading.

Every sentence is a chance to earn your reader’s attention—or lose their fragile, baby-fresh interest before your story even begins.

And that’s assuming that your book makes it to the bookstore shelves. If you’re traditionally publishing, the first chapter’s burdened with even more responsibility. It’s yo...

Your inciting incident sets the stage for everything that follows. Here's what to revise so it can carry the story.

A great inciting incident does a lot of heavy lifting.

→ It hooks your readers, pulling them into the story.

→ And it sets up everything to come, laying the foundation for a brilliant climax your readers will love.

The beginning matters. Which means there’s a lot of pressure to get it right.

But what does right actual...

“It really broke my heart, actually. . . . For the rest of my life, it will break my heart.” A.S. King gets honest about what happened when the publishing industry failed her book.

What happens after you edit your book?

What happens after you’ve bared the story of your heart, crafted it into an excellent novel, and presented it to the world?

What happens when you get traditionally published, when you receive awards and accolades, and ...

Do you need to hire a line editor? Or should you line edit your manuscript yourself?

After all, you want to write an excellent novel. You know that great writing takes shape in revision, and you don’t want to skimp on any layers of editing.

Nor do you want to overestimate your writing skills and leave your book littered with clunky sentences that a wordsmithing line editor could polish into shining brilliance.

On the other hand, you a...

“Revising is about making sure that you're saying what you want to say in the way you want to say it. . . . To me, revision is the sport. It's the impact. It's the reason we're writers.”

Have you ever read a book and thought, Holy cow, this is amazing. How did this author DO this?

Or, maybe you’ve read a book and thought, Wow, I wish I could write (or in my case, edit) a book like this, but this is incredible and ...

Ever wondered what an editor actually does all day?

What it looks like to spend all day supporting writers in their stories?

Or what your editor’s doing in all that time when they’re not sharing their feedback with you?

If those questions pique your curiosity, you’re in luck. I’m pulling back the curtain to share a week in my life as a developmental editor and book coach.

You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at what I do with writers an...

When to use frameworks to solve your story problems—and when to trust yourself and lean on your own story authority. 

You’ve heard of Save the Cat! Story Grid. Blueprint for a Book.

These are all frameworks designed to help you edit a novel. If you don’t know these names, I bet you know others—Hero’s Journey, Freytag’s Pyramid, 7 Point Story Structure, Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, there are dozens more.

Each one promises that if you use...

Escape analysis paralysis with one powerful question. It’s deceptively simple—and yet it unlocks everything.

If you’re like most of the writers I work with, you’re pretty savvy about story structure. You know your Story Grid, your Save the Cat!, your Hero’s Journey. You’ve probably analyzed your story six ways to Sunday, and you’ve got the spreadsheets and outlines and diagrams and graphs to prove it.

And all that analysis has levele...

The best novels combine rock-solid story structure with scenes that are unputdownable on every page. Here’s how one writer and two editors polished a story at every level.

If you want to move your reader in every moment, keep them hooked on every page, you need to refine your scenes until each one is unputdownable.

And that refinement? It’s SUCH a joy. It’s my favorite thing to do and it will transform your entire story.

But in order ...

It’s the most common developmental editing service you’ll see. Know what to look for and when (or if) you need one.

If you google “developmental editor” and start looking through editors’ websites, you’ll see a common service appear again and again:

A manuscript evaluation.

(Or assessment, or diagnostic, or critique. A rose by any other name, etc.)

Typically, in a manuscript evaluation, an editor will offer to read your manuscript and ...

You get one shot to grab their attention. Don’t waste it with characters staring off into space.

You've put all this work into uncovering your character's internal arc. You know them SO WELL.

When you step into a scene, you're giving your absolute all to uncovering the deep meaning and purpose behind it, the profound arc of character transformation that's happening in even the smallest moments....

It’s unpopular, but essential if you’re aiming to craft your best work.

Picture this: one year from now, you’re holding your book in your hands. You see the gorgeous cover art, feel the slight resistance when you open the cover for the first time, run your hands over the soft, smooth paper, flip the pages and smell that delicious new book smell.

Does that sound amazing? Holding your book in your hands just one yea...

Your book is important. But sometimes, worthy interruptions will delay it for a while.

For the last few months, this podcast feed has been quiet. It went dark with no notice in mid-June.

I didn’t mean to disappear on you. In fact, I didn’t plan to pause the podcast at all.

But a family emergency struck, and all my best-laid plans for summer 2024 changed in a matter of hours.

This summer, I learne...

Your reader experiences your story one scene at a time. Make every scene un-put-down-able.

Great stories are made of great scenes.

Sure, your novel has a clever plot with twists and turns from the first page to the last. But the way your readers will experience that plot is . . .

. . . one scene at a time.

Which means if you want your readers to fall in love with your novel, you need to captivate...

Show and tell your readers why time matters to your characters.

Time matters.

When you look up and it’s dark outside, time matters to you.

When your characters look around and summer is turning into fall, time matters to them.

When your readers are reading a novel and they can’t figure out how time is passing? Well, time matters to them, too—mostly because they’re confused.

In this episo...