Regardless where you are on your writing journey, you can benefit from entering contests. The right contest can tell you: Where you stand How you measure up against the competition What you still need to learn And you could win cash. That’s why my team researched a wide range of high-quality contests. We’ve included free […]
Read More“Write what you know” is one of the first pieces of advice many aspiring fiction writers hear when they embark on their journey to become an author. (And if you’re a nonfiction writer, stay with me.) On the one hand, the idea of writing what you know makes perfect sense. If you’ve ever read a […]
Read MoreYou may have heard the terms memoir and autobiography used interchangeably. They often live on the same shelf in bookstores. Both are nonfiction and contain facts from someone’s life, so what’s the difference? Let me walk you through the differences so you can be confident which you should be writing. What Memoir and Autobiography Have […]
Read MorePeople browsing books usually scan the cover for the title, author, and whoever wrote the foreword. Then they glance at the back cover. If intrigued, they’ll turn to the first chapter. Your first paragraph—from the first sentence—must compel your reader to continue. The power of creative nonfiction comes from using a technique common in fiction—rendering […]
Read MoreThere’s no way around it. You need a book outline if you’re writing nonfiction. For a novel, if you’re a Pantser (one who writes by the seat of your pants—like I do) as opposed to an Outliner, you can get away with having a rough idea where you’re going and how to get there. But […]
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