Writing Advice

Industry experts and legitimate writing coaches provide advice on how to spot writing coach scams and shield yourself accordingly.

To help you get the most value out of a partnership with a book cover designer, we turned to some of the top professionals for their across-the-aisle tips on how authors can build and maintain such successful working relationships.

What kind of writer-bird are you? Gayle Brandeis looks at different species of birds and their nest building techniques and considers how our fine feathered friends’ creative processes might intersect with our own as writers.

The key to achieving those New Year's writing resolutions—or any writing goals, for that matter—is to make the most of the time you have. J.J. Hanna explains how to maximize your writing productivity and improve your time management.

Greta Heinemann, writer-producer on NCIS New Orleans, shares how she achieved her goal of moving from Germany to Los Angeles to become a successful writer. It all starts with a pen and paper.

There's more overlap than you might expect between legal profession and the skills required to become a writer. Author Reyna Marder Gentin discusses the lessons she learned practicing law that she's been able to apply in her writing.

Author Michael Lewis of The Big Short, Moneyball and his latest, The Fifth Risk, lays out his formula for generating ideas and writing immersive nonfiction in this extended Writer's Digest interview.

Whether you believe in The Muse is actually not important. It is important, however, that you believe that writing, when it’s going very well, is fun, enlivening, curiously effortless, and surprising.

Kathy Edens finds that she can write content all day every day, but when it comes to fiction, she's terrified of the blank page. Her secret? Scheduling procrastination into her writing schedule.

Dana Chamblee Carpenter recalls a panel on which Anne Perry tossed aside the idea that the historical fiction writer had a responsibility to get everything “right.” We’re storytellers, after all, not historians.

Well-timed coincidences can catapult a story forward, but a poorly planned one can bring your readers to a dead stop. Use these 7 strategies to harness the power of this storytelling tool while steering clear of common missteps.

Writing is something we do on our own, but finding success requires a supportive writing community. Here's how to find and cultivate that community.

Despite long-standing aspirations of writing a book, initial successes with short stories and essays, and a healthy career in publishing, Andrea Jarrell published her first book at age 55. Here, she shares her experiences and offers principles for achieving your writing goals.

Jennifer Haupt discusses five strategies for finding a good balance between your vital alone time and the benefits of participating in a writing community.

Landis Wade shares 47 tips about writing fiction that he learned in a writing workshop with Craig Johnson, author of the Longmire series that was adapted into a popular TV series.

Funny You Should Ask is a humorous and handy column by literary agent Barbara Poelle. In this edition, she answers a reader's question about the best times to query a literary agent.

Jennifer Haupt discusses why it's sometimes beneficial to stop writing—that is, to step back from your work-in-progress in order to maintain your motivation and find a more productive path forward.

In this excerpt from the book Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card explains why exposition can present particular challenges when you're writing science fiction, and tips for overcoming those challenges.