Writing Sex Scenes (the Right Way)
“His pointer finger circled my puckered love cave. ‘Are you ready for this?’ he mewled, smirking at me like a mother hamster about to eat her three-legged young.” This is […]
Antiheroes: Bad, but Not TOO Bad
Antiheroes are, generally speaking, bad boys (and girls!) with rough exteriors and a multitude of flaws, but good hearts. What separates likable villains from antiheroes is, at the end of […]
Historical Fiction: Tips & Resources
I’ll never understand people who find history boring. It’s all like one ridiculous, bloody, passionate soap opera and it’s real. I find it fascinating to imagine long lost lives just […]
Fictional Trauma Narratives
I absolutely love writing trauma in fiction. It’s been an intense interest of mine since I majored in psychology in college, taking several classes on the effects of trauma in […]
Writing Sibling Relationships in Fiction
Can’t live with them, can’t live without them…but in my experience, it’s mostly can’t live without them. I have one little sister, and we’re incredibly different. Our relationship has always […]
People Don’t Talk Like That: Mastering Dialogue
This post is the third in a five-part series on the elements of fiction writing, in collaboration with the Ice Colony. Dialogue is one element of fiction that stands apart […]
Mental Illness in Fiction
Mental illness is often portrayed in fiction in a way that is highly innacurate. There are so many common misconceptions reinforced by depictions in books and movies, it can be […]
Writing Child Characters
I absolutely love writing kids in fiction. I’ve always preferred kids to adults in real life, and after spending more than eight years nannying and majoring in Developmental Psychology at […]
How to Write Romantic Relationships (Without Being Sappy)
Whether you‘re writing a hard-hitting literary novel or a fluffy summer romance, getting the dynamic between a couple right is both difficult and important to writing a compelling story, and […]
Writing Raw Emotion
Capturing the genuine heart of the human experience in fiction relies heavily on poignant and impactful depiction of emotion. In order to evoke feeling in the reader, you must evoke […]
Essential Apps for Writers
Part of being successful as a writer is finding a routine that works for you. Over the past several years, I’ve developed my own personal writing process. TLDR—I couldn’t do […]
The Key to Making Readers Care: Mastering Character
*This post is part of a collaboration with The Ice Colony, and the first in a monthly series on the craft of writing. In my experience, good characters are the […]