Writing Techniques

Sticking forks in the roads of your character’s lives is an important way to create conflict, build tension, and even start your story. Here, author Sue Mell shares 5 tips for writing and structuring effective turning points for your characters.

Author Ruby Dixon shares tips on how to write novels people want to read—including oneself.

Keeping physical and emotional distance, ignoring the worries about your future readers, and figuring out the mechanics—lawyer and author Jessica Martin walks us through how to write a sex scene like nobody is watching.

In updating a long-favorite trope to be relevant for today’s readers, author Angela Jackson-Brown discovered a necessary component to writing a doomed love story.

Author Mary Ford shares how she made the transition from a life-long journalist, including nearly 30 years as the editor of community newspapers, to debut novelist. Includes thoughts on how journalism and fiction writing are similar and different.

Interviewing sources for quotes or research will be part of any writer's job. Here are tips to make the process as smooth and productive as possible.

Writing for oneself after a decades-long career as a ghostwriter is a challenge unto itself. Here, author Daniel Paisner discusses his career as a ghostwriter, how the process differs from writing his own work, and if the two ever intersect.

Author Ashley M. Coleman gives you her top five tricks for writing about the music industry—even if you're not an industry expert.

Tattoos and their artists can reveal interesting details about your characters and offer historical context. Here, author June Gervais shares 8 things writers should know about tattoos.

In the second of a three part series, novelist and WD columnist Sharon Short explains how to change a character's point of view depending on their emotional connection to what's happening.

What can a writer learn from the classic fantasy board game? Author Katharine Schellman makes a case for why every writer should play Dungeons & Dragons.

For many writers, self-critique gets in the way of making much progress. Here, author Julia Crouch shares 6 ways to fight your inner critics.

Where realistic fiction felt both too restrictive and too revealing for author Susan Speranza’s transition from poetry to fiction, she turned to allegory. Here, she shares examples of famous allegories throughout history and how allegorical writing helped shape her novel, Ice Out.

Booker Prize–winning author Marlon James talks about mythology and world-building in his character-driven epic Moon Witch, Spider King, the second book in his Dark Star Trilogy in this interview from the March/April 2022 issue of Writer's Digest.

In the first of this three-part series, novelist and WD columnist Sharon Short breaks down 7 of the most common myths about choosing which POV is right for your story.

Internationally bestselling author Sarah McCoy reclaims the necessary messiness that comes with the writing process and discusses why writers strive for perfection when perfection doesn’t exist.

With social media being so pervasive in our lives, the relationship artists have with it is both inspiring and overwhelming. Here, author Francesca Giacco discusses how social media has played a part in her life and in her new novel, Six Days in Rome.

Trained fighter and author Carla Hoch discusses how to write scene with characters who are untrained for more realistic fighting sequences.