“A Leap of Faith” in Fiction and in Life
Near the end of a story the protagonist often takes “a leap of faith.” How can we make our protagonist’s leap feel earned and strengthen our story’s theme?
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Finding Book Recommendations Beyond the Usual
If we don’t know where to go to get book recommendations beyond the “usual,” we might get stuck in a reading rut, so let’s share ideas for other resources to try.
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Story Tropes: Making Them Resonate
Tropes are often seen as lazy writing, but they can be good for our story. How can we make tropes meaningful and not cliché?
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What’s the Right Way to Include Multiple POVs? — Guest: Kassandra Lamb
Some stories benefit from multiple points of view, but only if we follow a few do’s and don’ts. Here’s how to write multiple POVs right.
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Conflicts and Goals: How Do They Work in Romance?
In talking about active vs. passive goals, the concept gets even more complicated if we’re writing multiple-protagonist stories like romance.
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How Pacing Helps Readers Care about Our Characters
I never watched Game of Thrones but this past season is an excellent example of how pacing can affect character arcs and readers’ relationships to our characters.
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Worldbuilding Is for Every Story
Everyone understands what worldbuilding is for fantasy, science fiction, historical, etc., but what does worldbuilding mean for contemporary stories?
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What Defines Our Story? Drive vs. Focus
Ever feel like popular writing advice doesn’t apply to your story? Defining our story’s mix of drive vs. focus might help us know when advice is a bad fit.
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More Than a Happy Ending: What Makes a Story Uplifting?
The romance genre is often called “aspirational,” but even romances with a happy ending can fail at being uplifting. What other elements contribute to an uplifting story and what can they teach us about other genres?
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What Can Authors and Readers Learn from #CopyPasteCris?
In the recent scandal known as #CopyPasteCris, Cristiane Serruya plagiarized a lot of books. We’re looking at how it happened and what (if anything) can be done to prevent it from happening again.
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