If you want your writing to reach an audience outside your immediate friends and family, it's wise to think of writing not just as a product or work of art but as a career.

I've spoken to a number of writers who believe they don't have to revise that much before approaching an agent with their work. They hope that the merits of their story--the uniqueness of the idea and the execution of their early draft--will be enough to tantalize an agent. Because, anyway, the agent will help them edit the whole thing. Right?

One of the great pleasures of being a writer and working with writers is that reading is very much part of the job, and one of the great disappointments is that I can never read as much as I want to read.

Perhaps your goal for 2024 is to finally finish writing your book. And you know what? There is no reason you can't.

It's easy for social media to be the first thing we think of when we talk about building a platform--and that might spark a flare of panic. Take heart: an author platform is much more than social media. Your platform is simply the foundation from which you can attract readers.

Once you've put in all that work, does it mean you're ready to send the piece out into the world, either to find an agent or publish independently? Maybe, but probably not 💔

These last few weeks I’ve been going over the revision process, layer by layer, beginning with foundational elements like ensuring your main character’s desire is clear on the page and that there’s a clear narrative drive. Now, finally, we can look at those finer details like stylistic choices and dialogue.

Dialogue in fiction isn't like dialogue in real life. In fiction, it serves a crucial function in revealing our characters more fully through their own words and moving the plot forward. Additionally, we want our dialogue to sound natural and interesting and believable. Easy, right?

Last week I admitted that, in the past, I've tinkered with copyedits in my own work way before I needed to. The revision process is like building a layer cake and copyediting is the icing, if not the cake topper. There's a whole bunch of other good stuff to tackle first.

One big mistake that I made when revising my own work was to tackle copyedits first. There's something so satisfying about fiddling with sentences, rearranging them, swapping words, refining dialogue, smoothing out the errors. But you know what? All those perfect sentences don't matter if the story needs major structural work.