Why do some books “work,” while others don’t? Why do readers ravenously consume one book, while they put down another and forget about it entirely?
If you want to write books that readers love, you’d be wise to find answers to these questions and apply those answers to your work. Thankfully, there’s a resource available to you that provides an insider’s look at what readers want: The Story Grid!
Do you crave solid feedback on your writing but rarely get it? Our maybe you’ve received feedback but you’re having trouble what to embrace and reject, or how to apply writing feedback in general.
Learning how to apply writing feedback is tricky, but knowing how and when to accept and reject suggestions can drastically change your story’s ability to touch readers. It will also teach you how to give better feedback to others, which is crucial for building your writing community.
Are you looking for a writing challenge that really tests your writing skills? Something that pushes your writing process beyond national novel writing month (although trying out NaNoWriMo is a good challenge to face)?
As a writer, you’ve probably heard this question: “What’s your genre?” Or maybe you’ve been asked, “What is your book about?”
As writers, we tend to find a creative “happy place” and stay inside three boxes: medium, form, and genre. This allows us to find a consistent voice and target our work towards ideal readers.
But staying inside these boxes without any deviation can have major drawbacks that threaten the quality of your writing, and the joy of writing itself.
In order to stay sharp, writers need challenges to keep their creative juices alive and well.
And whether or not these challenges are daily writing challenges or something you find on social media without even looking for them, it’s important that, as a writing habit, we tackle them head on every once in a while.
We only become better writers when we step out of our comfort zones.
These three writing challenges will test and strengthen your writing skills.
We think that we need talent in order to be successful writers—or musicians, or golfers. But the truth is, writing, like any other skill, is learned and improved through daily discipline. Are you maintaining the disciplines you need to become a successful writer?
The Hero’s Journey is easily the most-used and most-loved storytelling structure in the history of humanity. It resonates with readers in ways that are as old as human D.N.A. itself.
If you want to connect with readers and engage them on a deep level, you would be at an advantage to study this storytelling method and use as much of it as possible in your writing.
One of the best ways to study and master the Hero’s Journey is by seeing it at work in another story. And in recent history, there is no clearer use of the Hero’s Journey than George Lucas’s space opera, Star Wars.
Let’s break it down, step by step.
