Fiction Writing Techniques

Perfectionism doesn't make your writing better — it stops you from finishing. Here's what 21 years in publishing taught me about quality, errors, and knowing when to call it done.

Stuck in the middle of your draft and can't move forward? This one writer's block trick will get you unstuck and back to writing in minutes.

Can't seem to finish what you start? Here's a 4-step system for setting a writing deadline that actually works — and breaking your project down until it's done.

Before query letters, agents, or book covers: every writer needs to complete their first draft before they can pursue getting published.

Stop staring at the blank page. Here's a 4-step process for writing your first draft from idea to manuscript—without intimidating yourself out of starting.

Every writer gets asked where their ideas come from. Here are three reliable sources fiction writers can return to again and again: dreams (even fragments), strategic creative borrowing, and the iteration game — a thought exercise that turns any existing story into something entirely your own.

Adventure stories work across every genre, but they all share five structural ingredients: danger, risk, opportunity, uncertainty, and pace. Learn what each one does, why you need all five, and how to calibrate them so your reader stays on the edge of their seat from the first page to the last.