Innovative Editing

If you read last week’s Writing Rule #28, then you might be thinking that you recognize the blog post title above. In which case, you’re rig

Well, we’re up to Writing Rule #28 and discussing first drafts, which admittedly can be pretty bad. Here’s a common enough story about the

Writing out a surprise story ending can sound like a really great idea in theory, and sometimes it can play out perfectly in practice too.

Since it’s not necessarily a commonly understood term, let’s define deus ex machina right from the get-go. According to my go-to resource,

I know I already said this with Writing Rule #24 about rising action, but it’s true of a story’s climax too: Drama gets old fast. That’s wh

Believe it or not, action scenes can get boring. Like really, really, really boring. That’s why the rising action segment in your story sho

Here’s the thing about being traditionally published: You have to follow the traditional publishing industry rules... or be really, really g

Creative writers are never completely stable people, so why would we ever think our styles and skills would be static? Put simply, they’re

How many points of view do you need in a story? And how many are too many? Those are very subjective questions, but let’s give them a shot

Whether a writer chooses to use dialogue tags all the time or none of the time or some of the time is their own business. Every author has h

Before I come right out and state Writing Rule #19, I need to address an issue that comes up way too often when writers are working on chara

We’re now up to Writing Rule #18, which reads this way: There’s a certain point where setting descriptions get intensely unnecessary.    S

I think that last week’s Writing Rule was probably my favorite so far. But #17 is a close second, since it addresses the awful issue of clic

I’ll admit that I’m cheating a bit with Writing Rule #16. It’s not that it isn’t 100% true. It’s that I’m crossing from the realm of villai

We’re onto Writing Rule #15 today, and it goes like this: No matter what you do with your protagonist’s personality, storyline or motivatio

With last week’s Writing Rule being #13, I made sure to stress that it wasn’t scary. But #14? I’m sorry to say this, but I have no such gua

I know some people are afraid of this next number, but Writing Rule #13 isn’t a scary one. Not unless you ignore it, in which case the rate

Most writers at least flirt with the idea of originality: of coming up with some story line that’s never been done before. In one sense, an

Here’s Writing Rule #11, and it’s an important one to keep in mind. Admittedly, all the writing rules are important to keep in mind. If the

We’re up to Writing Rule #10, a big milestone for 2017, clearly. Yet, sarcasm aside, this really can change your writing career. If you han