With National Novel Writing Month just six weeks away, it's time we had a chat about writing challenges. 

A writing challenge can take many forms. It can be a simple self-imposed goal or deadline. Or it can be a community-based event that encourages you to write daily or weekly short fiction, a 50,000-word novel in a month, or another goal entirely.

Whatever the intended output, writing challenges can present great opportunities to improve your writing skills and commitment to the craft. But writing challenges have a dark side that isn’t often discussed.

They’ve hit the scene in an incredible way, from the slew of Netflix films to the rise in rom-com fiction (sometimes called “chick lit”) in both Adult and YA. But rom-coms never really went away. They simply faded for a time, with new books and films releasing at a slower pace — a great example of what can happen in the ever-shifting market.

With rom-coms once more on the rise, I’d like to break down the anatomy of the genre using the structure outlined in Billy Mernitt’s Writing the Romantic Comedy. (Note: Buy this book. Seriously. It’s a sharp tool in your writing arsenal. Mernitt explains each of his seven story beats with brilliant examples from existing rom-coms. It’s a must-read.)

In The Anatomy of a Romantic Comedy, Mernitt takes the classic three-act structure (e.g. Conflict, Crisis, Resolution) and renames each point to set them into a rom-com frame: Meet, Lose, Get.

Fight scenes are notoriously tricky to write — or at least, most writers find them so. Why?

Because everything within a fight scene is heightened. The stakes are sky high, emotions and adrenaline are raging, and the action plays out in rapid-fire sequences not found anywhere else in literature. Translating all of this onto the page while balancing the pace of the scene and pushing readers’ to the edges of their seats is no easy task.

But here’s the good news: no matter whether you’re writing a sword fight, a bar room brawl, a sniper mission gone wrong, or a duel between magicians, today I have eight actionable tips to guide you in crafting a truly epic fight scene. Shall we dive in?

There’s more to self-publishing than throwing your book up on Amazon and calling it a day. 

To become a successful independent author, you must treat your writing as a business. Your books are your products, and to sell well, they must rival books produced by traditional publishers. To do this, you must give ample thought to every element of your books’ production, from editing and proofreading to cover design, back cover copy, formatting, and more.

Does that sound overwhelming? You’re not wrong. Indeed, there are a plethora of book production tools, services, and resources available to writers who choose to self-publish. But not all of these options are created equal. Some are more trustworthy than others, while some are simply better suited to certain books or writers.

How do you decide which options are best for you? Rather than fall victim to analysis-paralysis, let’s break down the most popular ways that self-published authors produce their books, beginning with five common interior formatting options…

Sitting down to write isn’t always easy.

When creative work proves difficult, many writers turn to goal-setting to motivate themselves to action, only to experience shame and frustration as they fail to fulfill their goals. Sound familiar? You aren’t alone.

Goal-setting often proves an ineffective productivity hack for one simple reason: a goal is an aim; not an action plan.

From the copy on your author website to the emails you send your readership and the marketing ads and campaigns you create — to thrive in your writing career, you must present your work to the world with professionalism.

One of my favorite tools for achieving professionalism is Grammarly. After crafting and revising content, Grammarly reveals key insights and inaccuracies that help me polish my work before I present it to the world. And making use of this AI-powered text editor is a joy thanks to its easy-to-use interface and various available formats, including:

• Online text editor (at Grammarly.com)

• Native apps for Mac & Windows

• Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge

• Keyboards for iOS and Android

• An add-in for Microsoft Office
  
  

This means you can use Grammarly on nearly any device and with nearly any piece of content you’d like to polish, from tweets and Facebook messages to blog posts, back cover blurbs, agent query letters, and beyond. 

Are you tired of struggling to sit down and write? You aren’t alone.

This phenomenon is so common that jokes about writing procrastination abound around the internet. But why is it so hard to put pen to paper when you desperately long to write? The answer to this is deceptively simple: because writing isn’t easy — and neither is drumming up the motivation to complete difficult creative work.

Sure, it’s easy to throw yourself onto the blank page when you’re running on the high of inspiration, when you’ve dreamed up an exciting new scene or a story idea you can’t wait to explore. But inspiration doesn’t last forever. Eventually, the muse departs and you’re left with an unfinished manuscript you’re struggling to find the motivation to finish.

This reality doesn’t mean you’ve lost passion for your project. Writing simply isn’t all sunshine and rainbows at all times, and that’s okay. There’s a reason so many writers profess to love having written more than the act of writing itself. If your story idea still energizes and excites you, it’s worth finding a way to complete the difficult creative work to finish it.

And when inspiration wanes, that way can be found in habit.

Readers today want to get deep into our characters rather than being told what they are feeling. Which means our characters must feel, react, emote, and process in natural, believable ways. Deep POV has become the norm across genres.

“Show, don’t tell” is the golden rule of fiction. But it’s easier said than done. If we show too much, we risk boring our readers (and ourselves) or overwriting. If we show too little, we risk failing to adequately reveal the character’s emotions and, hence, fail to evoke any emotional response in our readers. 

As we balance narrative, backstory, dialogue, action, and direct thoughts, we have to be mindful of the overarching purpose of all of it: to artfully show the character’s emotional state through her mind-set, thoughts, behavior, dialogue, and body language. It is not easy to do well. The saying “Easy reading is hard writing” is a truth seasoned authors know well.

Do you know what makes you unique as a writer?

Finding your footing among a sea of storytellers can feel like an impossible task, especially in the early days of your writing journey. Every writer you encounter influences the tide, pulling you this way or that as you seek to better understand your creative identity. If you’ve ever found yourself emulating the style of the most recent book you’ve read, you know exactly what I mean.

Defining your personal writing style and voice can help you grow comfortable and confident in your work. But how do you push back against the growing tide to build that sense of identity and assurance? Grab a cuppa and settle in, writer. It’s time we had a chat!

A little beta reader feedback can go a long way toward improving the quality of your work. 

In last week’s article, I answered six common questions about working with beta readers, including what beta readers are, why their feedback is invaluable, and how you can find the beta readers who will provide the most constructive feedback on your work. Today, I’m following that introduction with a guide to creating the very best beta experience for both you and your readers.

Remember, beta readers are providing you with a free service, taking the time to read your manuscript and share feedback on how you can improve it before you publish. That’s a lot of work! It’s your job to make that work as enjoyable as possible for your beta readers. And when you do, you may just find that you set yourself up for a fantastic beta reader experience as well.

In the aftermath of the USWNT’s World Cup victory, some of Ashlyn Harris’s Instagram stories showcased the team’s celebrations in the locker room. In them, champagne is spilled, trophies are kissed, players show off ridiculous dance moves and laugh at each other. But there’s one video among this bunch that stands out. And no, it isn’t the twerking video. It’s the one with Megan Rapinoe entering the locker room with the caption, “When you’ve been waiting for pinoe to be done with press conferences.” 

It’s clear as Rapinoe arrives that this locker room is the one place in the world she most wants to be and that the entire team wants her there, too. And it struck me as appropriate—humane, even—that the team gets to celebrate without the media watching. That after so many hours in the spotlight on the world stage, with such pressure and focus, they get to unwind with each other. They get to let down their guard—their public selves—and share their joy with the only people who fully understand it. 

There’s a lesson here for writers.

Nothing improves the quality of your writing like a little objective feedback.

Sure, a few well-honed self-editing skills can go a long way toward helping you craft incredible stories. But at the end of the day, you’re simply too close to your work to truly revise and refine it to be the best that it can be. This is where a second pair of eyes (or many seconds) can come in handy, specifically in the form of beta readers.

I recently worked with beta readers for the first time to seek feedback on my upcoming book Build Your Best Writing Life, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. I’m now excited to share what I learned from that experience in a new two-part series here on the blog, beginning with today’s post answering the most common questions about working with beta readers: