The Writing Process

Most popular posts

Deciding the question of "how long should a screenplay should be?" is a process of measurement against the demands of an audience, your work, and yourself that is much akin to the physical process of measuring something with a tape measure a few times over.

How Long Should a Screenplay Be?

Screenplays usually land around 90 to 120 pages. And the reason involves both technical considerations and the practical realities of...

When great character name ideas are conceived, they want to be used. The characters will want to employ themselves into personage that will go stamp themselves in the world, as visualized by rocks in a river with people's names painted onto them.

Character Name Ideas

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”– William Shakespeare,...

A visual metaphor for how an author chooses how many words in a chapter there 'ought to be. The language itself is like a large crop field, and those selected for a novel are like a great harvest of produce, from which one must batch together sections of produce to cordon into chapters.

How Many Words in a Chapter?

Authors often struggle to figure out when to add chapter breaks and how to properly split up their novel or...

Literary agents are often one of the main factors in the success of your book. Pictured is a literary agent alone in a conference room working hard on getting your book published — cool corporate lighting

Literary Agents: Steps to Securing Representation

Literary agents serve as the link between writers and the publishing houses that print and market their books. They’re often...

A woman who is pensive and furtive, and her reflection beside her smiling, suggesting the dichotomy of an internal dialogue as perceived by a viewer

Internal Dialogue

Internal dialogue does more than let you know what a character is thinking. It shows you what that character cannot...

See how to write flashbacks in screenplay as a relation to a lack of stricture on temporality. A table at the end of a hallway with many doors that lead into other rooms as a visual metaphor for how flashback functions inside a screenplay and how to write a flashback in screenplay, specifically handling the temporal relation between image and page.

How to Write Flashbacks in a Screenplay

Flashbacks act as a sort of Swiss army knife. You can use them in multiple ways — to foreshadow coming...

Tips for writing a novel depicted by the messiness of a workspace — food, coffee, and a place to keep all of those things.
Blog
Alan Watt

Tips for Writing a Novel

Master these tips for writing a novel by embracing messy first drafts and creative warmups. Learn how to silence your inner critic and finish.

Read More »
Window with a frosted glass filter on it that stops the viewer from seeing the beautiful outdoors
Blog
Alan Watt

Filtering

Filtering will disengage any good reader. Experiment with your sentences and you can cut down on this bad habit to hook your reader.

Read More »
Blog
Alan Watt

Exponential Growth

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”– Albert Allen Bartlett, physicist Whether it is

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We Are All Connected
Blog
Alan Watt

We Are All Connected

“No one is free until we are all free.”– Martin Luther King Jr. It is human nature to search for absolutes. Joe is a

Read More »
Never Give Up
Blog
Alan Watt

Never Give Up

I was a half decent 800-meter runner in high school, not great, but I ran with a lot of heart, and sometimes

Read More »

Recent posts

A visual metaphor for how an author chooses how many words in a chapter there 'ought to be. The language itself is like a large crop field, and those selected for a novel are like a great harvest of produce, from which one must batch together sections of produce to cordon into chapters.

How Many Words in a Chapter?

Authors often struggle to figure out when to add chapter breaks and how to properly split up their novel or...

Different writing styles featured image from the 1600s, painting by Gabriël Metsu used to depict a very royal feeling to writing

A Look at 5 Different Writing Styles

Just as your characters each have a distinct voice, every writing style carries its own purpose, logic, and effect. Knowing...

Featured image for a worldbuilding template for writers, what process of inquiry is necessary in order to build a compelling world that mirror's the author's own inner realms

Your Worldbuilding Template for Fiction

Organize your writing process with this comprehensive worldbuilding template. Define the details of your world as a starting point to...
Tips for writing a novel depicted by the messiness of a workspace — food, coffee, and a place to keep all of those things.

Tips for Writing a Novel

Master these tips for writing a novel by embracing messy first drafts and creative warmups. Learn how to silence your...
Image depicting the lightness and ease of how to become a better writer, a multifaceted question that starts with planning and goes through organizing your work and eventually making it easier to give yourself the permission to write

How to Become a Better Writer

How to become a better writer? Establish a consistent routine that prioritizes showing up. Practice, rest, and refill your creative...
Window with a frosted glass filter on it that stops the viewer from seeing the beautiful outdoors

Filtering

Filtering will disengage any good reader. Experiment with your sentences and you can cut down on this bad habit to...
How long does it take to write a book, a question answered only by time given...

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book?

"How long does it take to write a book" is a question of daily schedule. A solid outline and forward...
creative writing

What is Creative Writing? How to Shape Ideas into Art

Creative writing invites writers to move beyond facts and formulas, using imagination and craft to shape ideas into compelling stories....

how to start a story

How to Start a Story: Crafting Openings That Captivate

In the best stories, the reader’s attention keeps in sync with the rhythm of the prose. It’s like a snowball...

stream-of-consciousness

Stream-of-Consciousness Writing: Tips for Creative Expression

There’s rhythm in prose. The rhythm might be intentionally terse, like a Charles Bukowski novel, or dense and languid like...

morning pages

Morning Pages: A Daily Habit to Boost Creativity

“Morning pages” is the term coined by Julia Cameron in her work The Artist’s Way used to describe the habit...

how to start writing a book

How to Start Writing a Book: The No-Fluff Starter Guide

Welcome! And congratulations! If you’re reading this, you are about to begin a creative journey that can bring satisfaction and...

writer's block

Getting Past Writer’s Block: Causes and Proven Cures

Writer’s block can feel like a brick wall in your mind. The words stop flowing and the page seems impossible...

personal narrative

Personal Narratives: Shaping Real Life into Compelling Scenes

All writing carries something of the writer within it, but few forms are as intimate as the stories we tell...

writing process

The Writing Process: Learning to Trust the Work

Writing is an act of magic. Out of thin air you’ve conjured something and put it onto the page. People...

Exponential Growth

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”– Albert Allen Bartlett, physicist Whether...

We Are All Connected

We Are All Connected

“No one is free until we are all free.”– Martin Luther King Jr. It is human nature to search for...

Never Give Up

Never Give Up

I was a half decent 800-meter runner in high school, not great, but I ran with a lot of heart,...