Dear Writer

This week, we discuss how to edit the first draft of your novel. Should you let your manuscript rest or start editing immediately? Then, we share our editing checklists and some tips about dealing with Beta Reader feedback.

In this month's Talking Shop episode, Sarah reviewed the second chapter of The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maas which explained the nuances of showing vs telling. Ashley reviewed chapter two of a book called The Writing Experiment – Strategies for Innovative Creative Writing By Hazel Smith which demonstrated a writing technique based on experimenting with different genres.

On our Author Spotlight segment this month, we chatted with Beth D. Carter. Beth is a US based author who writes romance novels about ordinary girls in extraordinary situations. She has been published for thirteen years and released 100+ books in that time. We had a really interesting conversation about the twists and turns in her publishing journey, and she shared some invaluable writing advice a...

On this Culturing Creativity episode, we try our hand at making mood boards for some of the books in our Black Skies Series and discuss how these mood board can help inspire creative thinking. If you would like to create your own mood board, we suggest using milanote at https://milanote.com for an easy online platform.

On this craft episode of Dear Writer, we discussed the importance of story structure when writing your novel, and explored some of the common elements found in different types of narrative structure.

In this episode, Sarah reviewed the first chapter of Crafting Novels & Short Stories: The Complete Guide to Writing Great Fiction by Writer's Digest Books (Editor) which gave handy tips about how to organize your writing life. Ashley explored an article called Fantasy World Building: The Power of Detail by C.S. Pacat from the the journal Writing Queensland which looked at how the addition of small...

On our Author Spotlight segment this month we chatted with M.K. Stabley. She is a US based author who writes cozy mysteries with a paranormal twist. She has two series, The Eva St. Claire Mysteries and The Alexa Vandagau Mysteries. The next novel in her Eva St. Claire Series will be released in August. When she's not writing, she's talking about writing on her podcast, The Talking Book Podcast. We...

On this culturing creativity episode, we talked all about developing a healthy writing mindset. We explored what a 'writing mindset' is, why it's so important for your writing, and how to work out an approach to writing that is suited to your individual circumstances.

This craft episode was devoted to the art of creating emotion in your characters and in drawing out emotion from your readers. We discussed tips and tricks we use to engage readers by creating realistic emotion-driven scenes, and why the reader's emotional connection to the characters is important.

On our author spotlight segment this month we had a wonderful chat with Julie Higgins. Julie is a mystery/thriller writer based in the UK. Her debut novel, Finding Ruby, was released in 2019. The sequel, A Long Time Burning, is a Christmas mystery that will be released near the end of this year. We had an engaging conversation with Julie about the process of writing mystery novels, her inspiration...

On this craft episode of Dear Writer, we discussed how to weave backstory into your novel, and why it is important, especially when it comes to the craft of character and relating to your readers.

We introduced two more writing resources on this talking shop episode. Though both articles we chose were more directed at instructors of creative writing classes, they were enlightening and thought-provoking reads. Sarah explored an article called "Writing Here, Writing Now; Making Sense of It All: Examining Cultural and Historical Context in the Introductory Creative Writing Class", by Oindrila...

On our author spotlight this month we were delighted to talk to Melissa McTernan. Melissa is a paranormal/fantasy romance author based in New York. She has three novellas published by small presses: Missing Maren, Through the Fairy Ring, and Secret Family Recipes for Love and Butter Cookies. Her new self-published book, Bewitched By My Best Friend came out last month. We had an inspiring conversat...

On another culturing creativity episode, we immersed ourselves once again in genre. But this time, we focussed on how to find the genre that suits you best. To some, it seems like an obvious answer. But we discussed how this affects your writing and your confidence, particularly as a new writer if you're not sure where to start.

On this craft episode of Dear Writer, we talk about how to craft the perfect villain, and the many reasons why the villain is so central to the plot of your novel.

On this talking shop episode, we focussed on two academic articles. Sarah discussed an article titled, "'I've Learned I Need to Treat My Characters Like People': Varieties of Agency and Interaction in Writers' Experiences of Their Characters' Voices", by John Foxwell, Ben Alderson-Day, Charles Fernyhough, and Angela Woods. Ashley reviewed an article called "Hideous Progeny - Examining how the fail...

We ventured into the realms of Academia once more to bring you two new and interesting resources about writing. Sarah explored ideation, and the processes of the brain when an idea is sparked, in the article "You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat" by Arne Dietrich. Ashley reviewed "Malcolm Cowley on the Four Stages of Writing: Lessons from the First Five Years of The Paris Review" by Maria Papova. You c...

On this culturing creativity episode of Dear Writer we tried out and discussed a writing exercise called, "Exploding A Moment". This wonderful exercise helps with developing detailed description in your creative writing. You can find instructions on how to do this exercise here: https://wr.english.fsu.edu/College-Composition/The-Inkwell/Details-and-Descriptions#Exploding%20a%20Moment:%20Developing...

On this special author spotlight episode, we had four of our previous guests back to talk about the progress they've made since we first interviewed them. This author spotlight featured Dan Saunders, M.H. Woodscourt, Kaitlyn Legaspi and Emé Savage in four fifteen-minute mini interviews. Keep an ear out for more Returnees later this year.

On this Culturing Creativity episode we experimented with Blackout Poetry. We discussed what it is, how to create it and how we found the experience.

On this craft episode of Dear Writer, we talked about how to create realistic relationships between characters, and why this aspect of character creation is important.

On this talking shop episode, Sarah reviewed an inspiring poetry book, 'Newspaper Blackout' by Austin Kleon, which described and demonstrated the unique form of blackout poetry. Ashley discussed an article by the name of 'Summoning Ghosts and Releasing Angels: Challenging the Tyranny of the Blank Page' by Amina Alyal and Oz Hardwick. You can find the article here: https://www.nawe.co.uk/DB/current...

We welcomed Kendall Coppola to the author spotlight this month. Kendall Coppola is a New Zealand author, based in Auckland. He loves creative projects; writing novels and screenplays, videography, and photography. His debut book, 'Two Years till Thursday: true stories from a truly hopeless romantic', came out in December 2021. When he isn’t writing or working on creative projects, Kendall loves to...

This week we threw ourselves headfirst into the topic of self-doubt and Imposter Syndrome. In this episode, we expose our own insecurities and talk about how to manage these feelings as a writer and an author. We also discussed our separate working lives and the lessons we've learned through our day jobs.

On Dear Writer this week we took on the task of defining genre—what it is and how it's useful to writers. We looked at the importance of genre from both the reader and the writer experience. Knowing the function of genre can help you to craft and sell a mesmerizing story.