by Whitney Carter   Like a lot of my how to pieces here, this one came from my own developing of a fight scene. I used to be really good at writing them as a teenager. I used short, choppy and frequently fragmented sentences to develop the abrupt feel of a fight, choosing active words and… Read More How to Construct Gripping Fight Scenes

by Lauren Sapala   When I was in college I took a class called Fantasy Literature, which I thought would be nothing but fun and actually turned out to be a lot of hard work. On the first day of class, our professor told us that we would be reading one book a week, and… Read More Why Are Query Letters and Synopses So $#!%ing Hard to Write?! (And How To Get Through It)

  Everyone always says to be original in your writing, but are we oversimplifying things? Can anyone be original anymore, and what are the pitfalls in striving for originality? “Originality is merely an illusion.” -Isaac Bashevis

  by Vic Salinas   In my experience, writing battle scenes is a very dangerous endeavor. A writer has to walk a fine line between giving too much away and giving too little. While this is true of writing in general, it is especially true of combat.

  by Michael Cristiano   When it comes to writing, there is nothing more daunting than writing a novel. Okay, maybe attempting to write a saga of twelve novels is a little bit more daunting, but let’s stick to just one for now. In my opinion, writing a novel is a little more difficult than say… Read More 4 Misconceptions About Writing a Novel

  by Monique Hall   Nearly five weeks ago, I battled nerves and self-doubt but finally managed to hit send on my manuscript submissions to the editors I pitched to at the RWA Conference at the end of August. A few days after that, I participated in a Twitter pitch contest—an attempt to pitch your manuscript… Read More Rejection: A Writer’s Rite of Passage