Writers on Writing

Most popular posts

A writer is trying to rewrite a simple thing on a notepad with crumpled pieces of paper all around. Beauty and lightness are evoked in the frame, suggesting this as a necessary process.

The Rewrite

Once you’ve completed an editing checklist on your manuscript, you may find that your story requires a more substantial rewrite. ...

A woman whose style of singing sets her apart from the crowd is a simple and effective metaphor for how to visualize the ways to describe a voice for characters to be distinguished from one another easily

Ways to Describe a Voice

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called the human voice “the organ of the soul.” Writers must become skilled organists to differentiate and...

Image of the caucasus mountains used to visualize the 10,000 hour rule and how it can be applied to you, above in the background are high mountain peaks certainly worth climbing but in the foreground is a lake that suggests a serenity and calm in the achievement of joy

10,000 Hour Rule on Mastering Skills

“It takes 10,000 hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience; experience leads to proficiency; and the more...

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...

need to write: manuscript on laptop with dog
Blog
Kelly Dwyer

What I Need to Write

Dorland Mountain Arts Colony is a tranquil retreat for writers, artists, and musicians in the mountains of Temecula, California. The first time

Read More »

Recent posts

A ship's mooring in a snowy part of the world to give a frosty visualization of Unmoored

Unmoored: My Search for Meaning

Explore the transformative power of writing as a tool for healing trauma, finding self-acceptance, and discovering meaning beyond the search...
A blank page for the article "Follow the Dog: On Persistence and Self-Trust" by Tess Callahan

Follow the Dog: On Persistence and Self-Trust

Tess Callahan details her journey through authorship and publishing her manuscripts--the difficulty of not feeling enough as a writer and...
Visualization of 4 tips to write a novel image licensed from deathtothestockphoto

4 Tips for Writing a Novel

Monica Lourens shares tips on how to write a novel and find one's individual strength to finish their work....
Featured image for author Maida Korte's guest blog

Authoring – and Other Writerly Pursuits

Maida Korte explores 5 critical tenets to help writer's prove their authorship and create unabashedly in a piece on her...
need to write: manuscript on laptop with dog

What I Need to Write

Dorland Mountain Arts Colony is a tranquil retreat for writers, artists, and musicians in the mountains of Temecula, California. The...