Category: Writing Craft
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How I Discovered My Favorite New Novel-Writing Process
Over the past few months, I wrote a novel in a way I’ve never tried writing a novel before. And it poured out surprisingly easily—much more so than any of the other novel projects I’ve worked on. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun developing a first draft. But on the flipside, it…
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5 Story Structures Every Novelist Needs to Know
In last week’s blog post, I talked about how to incorporate outlining into your novel-writing process, even if you’re a pantser. This week, I’ll be answering a slightly different question: what kind of story structure should you use in your novel outline? The honest answer is that it depends. There are countless shapes a story…
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How to Outline Your Novel (Even If You’re a Pantser)
A lot of writers are surprised when I tell them that I’m a pantser who loves to outline. If you’re not familiar with the terms “pantser” and “plotter,” these are categories for two types of writers. Plotters like to plot out their stories in advance so they know what’s going to happen next, while pantsers…
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3 Underrated POV Ideas to Try in Your Next Story
In elementary school, I always learned that there are three points of view (POVs)—first person, second person, and third person. Which is true. Kind of. But it’s not the full truth. One of my biggest awakenings as a writer was the realization that POV is more of a spectrum than a set of categories. POV…