Nonfiction gets a bad rap for being dry and dull, but it doesn’t have to be. Many of the same liberties can be taken in creative nonfiction as in fiction. If you have something important to share with the world from your own life, this may be your category. Some literary flair can amp up your story and make it more approachable to your readers.

This one's for all the people who are still casting around for an idea. How do you create a story? What matters to you, and what matters to readers?

“To me, re-reading my favorite books is like spending time with my best friends. I’d never be satisfied to limit myself to just one experience each with my favorite people.”

― C S Lewis

Overwriting happens often in early drafts, as writers try to get the story down and figure they’ll fix things later. Sometimes details draw us in, but often they can distract readers, pushing them to think about unrelated things ... and then to stop reading.

Find your niche in the nonfiction children’s book market using these timely takeaways.

Chapter structure, like plot structure, is key to achieving a believable and engaging narrative. Here’s how to make sure your chapters are complete and doing as much work for you and your story as possible.

Go beyond the landscape when setting the scene with these three essential considerations for starting your novel.

If you've been wondering how to format interrupted dialogue in your manuscript, here's a quick answer.

Stories are like people. They have a body, and a soul. The body is the plot, the actions that happen. And the soul is the character, the protagonist, the key person (or persons) bound by the circumstances of the plot and forced into decisions.

Here's an energizing pep talk on how to write, including the ingredients you need to get started and keep going.

Getting distracted from writing has always been a challenge for writers. But it’s more acute these days, as lockdowns and quarantines interfere with the habits we once built. Here are the top four ways we tend to get distracted from writing, with troubleshooting solutions for each.

Thinking about finding another literary agent? Here are some tips to help smooth the transition.

Here's a video follow-up to our blog post on the old writing adage "write what you know." A closer look at what this expression really means and how you can make it work in your writing.

Even though narratives tend to focus on the life of one character – sometimes a few in multiple POV – the people in that character’s life are equally important. Giving them personalities, sometimes backstories and arcs of their own, are what make the narrative as a whole more realistic.

These descriptive writing tips will help you create impactful imagery that supports your story.

The Good Story Grant aims to help two writers reach the next step in their creative journeys. This grant is open to writers of all skill levels, and working in all genres and categories. The award is $1,500 US, used however you’d like … as long as it has to do with writing and helps you tell your story.

Essential advice for illustrators on building an online home for your art to prepare for querying art reps or literary agents.

Violet prose—an ominous and sometimes confusing term. What is it, and how do we avoid it in our writing? Or … is it really that bad?

You have an offer of representation from a literary agent--now what? Here are some crucial questions to ask before you sign on the dotted line.

Among popular bits of advice—create empathetic characters, avoid rhetorical questions, try starting with an outline—“trust your reader” is often overlooked. Here’s how to trust your reader to understand what you’re trying to show.