You write because you have something to say. Your writing needs the flavor and character that only you can give. How do you achieve a distinctive touch and flavor for your writing?
The guiding principle is focus and the starting point is to know the essential focal points that save time and agonizing self-examination. I show [...]

Crime fiction is big business at the moment, but there are certain situations that have been overplayed so much that they have become genre cliches and everybody knows what to expect next. Here are ten cliches you should try to avoid and thoughts on how to subvert the cliches if you [...]

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.

A man came to me last week because he needed help writing his book. He told me that he’s had this project on his to-do list for years, but he just couldn’t seem to get started. He’s literally been staring at the task-start writing my book-almost every day, and when he came to me, he [...]

Send in a sloppy, grubby manuscript and your chances of rejection are greatly increased. Send in a smart, clean, tidy manuscript and the publishers offices will ring with the cry - “Hey, here’s someone who knows how to do it properly! Break out the Champaign! Bring on the dancing girls!’ But maybe not the latter [...]

As the word is being used here, “hedge” means to qualify your statements, express them as opinions, or tell the reader that you are not confident in what you are writing.
In the following sample statements, the writer demonstrates his lack of confidence:

“I think the ball is about to explode.”
“If I understand the instructions correctly, the [...]

Are there any writers out there who don’t want to make money from writing? Who don’t want to earn a living from their writing? Who don’t want to become rich from their writing?
Well, there probably are. And that’s fine. But this article isn’t for them. This article is for you. You who knows that you [...]

As the author of the Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés says, some entries on the list can be used as starting points for ‘stories that work’ – and it is the manner in which the story is developed which defies the issue.

Last year I invested months of my time in hours to freelance job sites, in an effort to boost my income. After becoming burned out and disillusioned by some of these websites, I realized that the only way to land any jobs or make any money was if I would offer my [...]

Brimming with confidence, you’ve just signed the check purchasing the rights to adapt John Doe’s fabulous, but little known novel, Lawrence of Monrovia, to screenplay form. Suddenly, panic sets in. “What was I thinking? How the devil am I going to convert this 400-page novel to a 110-page screenplay?”