An Editor's Cup of Tea

Creating motivated dialogue is one of those things that authors either know how to do or they don’t. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. If those struggling writers follow some simple rules of thumb, their books are sure to improve. Why Characters Say the Things They Do The first step in creating motivated […]

As a fantasy editor, I am no stranger to prologues. My authors love them. However, I rarely see prologues done well on the first try. After all, there’s an art to them that many authors don’t understand. A good prologue can enhance the reading experience, but a bad prologue can lose readers before they’ve even […]

How can writers fix stories that don’t seem to be going anywhere? When they have hundreds of pages of content, yet their readers fail to see a real story developing? The majority of the time, the problem is that their main character is not actively pursuing a GOAL. Story Goals In every story, the protagonist […]

Every novel needs some side characters. After all, the best way to make a character lovable is to show people who love them. However, some authors make the mistake of piling too many side characters into their novels and struggling to juggle all of them. But how do you know if a side character is […]

In all the story drafts I have read, misused dialogue has been the most apparent issue. Unfortunately, writers often believe that dialogue is simply characters speaking back and forth. They write scenes filled with “talking heads,” where one character speaks, another character speaks, and nothing else happens. The Problem with Talking Heads But what’s so […]

Many writers struggle with an issue called “infodumping,” where they introduce large amounts of exposition all at once. If this problem is bad enough, infodumping can cause readers to give up on a book entirely, even before the story truly starts. Definition of Infodumping Cambridge Dictionary defines “infodump” as “the practice of giving too much information at the same time.” […]

New writers often struggle to know when to send their novel to agents and publishing houses. Other writers will self-publish their book before it’s ready. Editors can answer these questions, but another effective solution is beta readers. Unfortunately, many authors don’t know where to find beta readers, and in some cases, they’ve never even heard […]

In a world full of word processors, many writers choose one of the simplest options and run with it. For years, I wrote my drafts on Google Docs because it was simpler to share with beta readers. However, that processor takes forever to load entire drafts. Luckily, I recently switched over to Scrivener. The program […]

We all know someone who has a fantastic story idea in their head, but they’ve never gotten around to writing it down. Unfortunately, these people mark the difference between a storyteller and someone with a fantastical imagination. There isn’t anything wrong with either type of person, but only one of these options allows stories to […]

Most aspiring authors have at least one substantial story idea under their belt, and they sit with that story for years, writing and perfecting it until they are certain it’s complete. However, once that story is done, they often fall into a creative slump, asking themselves, “What if that’s the only story idea I’ll ever […]