Some time ago, I was writing a story and used a variation of the sentence, “He wished he could be a fly on the wall when they had that conversation.” This puzzled my critique partner, who didn’t know it meant. She had never heard the expression “fly on the wall”…

@DiAnnMills 'Tis the season of the turkey. If you enjoy eating the Thanksgiving bird, then you love the season. If you’re the turkey, well not so much. You’ve probably spent the past year hatching ways to disguise yourself. For the turkey, I commend his ingenuity. For the turkey-writer, well not…

by Katy Kauffman @KatyKauffman28 Outlines are our friends, or are they? I loved making outlines in my seminary class because they provided structure for the speeches I prepared. Things changed. In recent years, I dreaded making outlines as I wrote books and blog posts. They seemed to confine the feeling…

by Aaron Gansky @adgansky When an idea for a novel pops into our minds, the first thing we like to do is flesh out a few major plot points, which is fine. But, it can become a problem when we race our characters from one place to the next simply…

by Aaron Gansky @adgansky You hear writers often mention the “fictive dream.” John Gardner called it a “vivid and continuous dream.” It’s a term used to describe a simple principle: no one wants to read a book. There, I said it. Man, it feels good to get that off my…

by Alycia W. Morales @AlyciaMorales As the Carolinas prepare for Hurricane Florence this week, we are reminded that there are things to do and have in place before she arrives, things to do when she arrives, and things to do after she dies out. As writers, it's important to recognize…