Honestly assessing your writing temperament can help you be more productive; you’ll learn to work with your natural strengths and navigate around the spots that give you trouble. We continue in our exploration of the most common types of temperaments (and you may see yourself in more than one) with a look at “The Island.”
The [...]

If you’ve made it past your teens, you’ve learned that denial doesn’t work in relationships. Pretending to be someone you’re not will only catch up with you in a complicated, unpleasant way at some point. The same holds true for your relationship with your writing self. Telling yourself you have a different writing personality than [...]

Imagine that you’re being interviewed right before you give your Pulitzer acceptance speech (the National Book Award ceremony is next week). The reporter asks, “Oh Fabulous One, what kind of writer are you?” You think: dreamy, inquisitive, creative, esoteric, ephemeral… but it becomes painfully clear that you misunderstood the question.
The reporter wants to know about [...]

You’ve probably thought about your general temperament and how it impacts your relationships. For instance, you have some idea about what kind of friend you are, what kind of parent or sibling or spouse or significant other. But have you ever thought about what kind of writer you are? Finding out can tell you a [...]

You’ve probably reflected on your overall temperament and how it impacts your relationships. For instance, you have some idea about what kind of friend you are, what kind of parent or sibling or spouse or significant other. But have you ever thought about what kind of writer you are?

I’ll bet you’ve grown weary of writing coaches telling you how to fix your work-in-progress. Ready to break the monotony? Here are some guaranteed ways to ruin a perfectly good manuscript.

Writing is like any other skill in that you have to do a lot of it to get better. There isn’t any way around that, but you can identify mistakes common to new writers and learn to stop making them before they become habit.

Before we talk shop about the best way to tag dialogue, permit me to illustrate the wrong way. Let’s bring some nursery rhyme characters to life for this, since they aren’t around to get offended:
The lamb, always sure to be where Mary was, watched Mary shellac her hair in place.
“Mary, you’re a scream,” the lamb [...]

Is your work-in-progress feeling blah? Tired? Dishwater dull? Read on to discover practical tips for injecting your work with excitement and electricity — the antidote to manuscript malaise.
5 pick-me-ups for a so-so manuscript:
Boost the pacing.
Delete all the boring parts (which includes anything that’s not absolutely necessary).
If you don’t have a deadline nipping at your heels, [...]