What's your dream for your book this year? Try a simple new-year's exercise to find out. It's called a presume --a word coined ...

Your book has a major and minor cast, whether you're writing fiction, memoir, or nonfiction. People move stories, illustrate theories an...

What's behind the veil? If everyone in literature wears a disguise or mask that veils their true self, what are your book's major pl...

Alison McGhee, writing instructor and author of many wonderful novels including Shadow Baby, once taught a very effective exercise in a wri...

In her excellent book on writing craft, Listen to Me, memoirist Lynn Lauber writes: "If you find yourself telling the same story over a...

Sometimes the best writing comes when we're slow, dreamy, not thinking about accomplishing anything. Does this happen to you? Maybe it...

A book-writing client talked with me this week about having an ongoing spirit of gratitude for her characters. She regularly notes on paper...

Pacing—a delicate affair in writing a book—depends on a balance of expanded and contracted moments. Good pacing creates a rhythm between the...

Hollywood script doctor John Truby says that successful movies are written with images first, words second. We are such a visually oriented...

How closely do your writing and life intersect? How can they support, even feed, each other? This week's exercise can be transformationa...