The world is full of possibilities, but unless you push yourself, struggle to drive your story to its limits, you will never make real discoveries. You won’t glean the insights that your story needs to take it from the mundane to the sublime.
I’m going to talk a bit about audience analysis. It’s always good before you begin to write to really understand who your audience is and
I often look for similarities in great stories to see what works. One “conflict” that I see very often is that powerful stories resolve “the
It’s hard starting a story cold, as many of you have found when you try to write a novel. You know that you want to
My dream of writing came to life when I was in my teens. I had read Lord of the Rings two or three times in
Writers love to gossip about editors, agents, and publishers. Most of the time, that gossip is pretty harmless, but sometimes it can come back to
Every year when the Hugo and Nebula Awards are announced, I see a pattern: A young writing student of mine (or three) will get nominated
What stories affect you profoundly? Which ones are your favorites? If you had to make a list of the three most influential of stories, could
This past week, I had to perform an unusual exercise. I have a couple of studios who are looking at doing a television series based
Very often I meet writers who can’t discuss even the most basic points of their publishing contracts. They’re afraid to even read them. They’ll make the excuse, “Oh, I had my agent (or attorney) handle the contract.”
A few days ago I made an ill-considered remark that might have offended some of you, and I need to apologize. I had read some
There’s a lot of bad advice floating around out there. Some of it is bad for everyone, but some of it might just be bad
Starting a writing career is tough. Generally speaking, you will have to write your first book—or two or three—on the side while you are working
When you are starting out, many authors hope that they will get a big advance right out the gate. That’s natural. You need time to
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