It’s no secret that social media can be both an incredible tool and an incredible distraction.

Unfortunately, that distraction isn’t limited to the amount of time we spend mindlessly scrolling. Maintaining an active social media presence can also eat away at the limited amount of time most writers have to dedicate to their work. It’s no wonder I’m often asked how one can balance writing and social media marketing, or even whether writers must have a social presence in the first place. It’s the latter question I’d like to address in depth today.

I worked on my thriller, Murderabilia, for years. Imagine my surprise when the TV show, “The Prodigal Son,” aired in September with a nearly identical premise. In my book and the show, the son of a serial killer has not seen his imprisoned father since he was a boy. Many years later, someone commits a murder that looks just the way his father would do it. The police need the protagonist to work with his father to find the copycat killer. Had someone borrowed my work?

Are you tired of jumping from distraction to distraction when trying to write? Perhaps this isn't a problem you need to solve but rather an element of your creative process worth embracing. Author Autumn Krause explains…

External conflict often plays a major role in genre fiction, forming the foundation for a story’s plot as the protagonist struggles to achieve their goal in the face of opposition. As such, many genre fiction writers spend a considerable amount of time developing their story’s plot arcs while giving little thought to an equally powerful story element: character arcs.

As writers, we hold the power to counteract marginalization and discrimination in literature by writing inclusively. When we actively work to improve the quality and diversity of the representation in our stories, we help dismantle the social hierarchy, expand our readers’ worldview, and ultimately ensure that every reader can see themselves in the pages of their favorite books.

We’ve already discussed how the events that took place in your characters’ pasts should affect who they are when your story begins. Backstory gives your characters a sense of history, of lives that extend beyond the confines of the story you’re telling, ultimately helping readers view your characters as fully-realized. Backstory can even provide insight into your characters’ beliefs, worldviews, and motivations—all vital characterization elements that should affect the way your characters act and the decisions they make throughout your story.

As you can see, taking care to develop your characters’ backstories is essential to your story’s success. Today, I’d like to take an even deeper dive into backstory, exploring the aspect of your characters’ past that is perhaps most essential of all: their ghost.

If you’re looking for a simple and cost-effective way to format your next book, allow me to introduce you to Vellum.

This book formatting software is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. Though designed with fiction in mind, you can use Vellum to format any book not in need of complicated interior design.

Because Vellum is a one-time purchase (I.e. $199.99 for e-book formatting, $249.99 for print + e-book formatting), it’s a cost-effective DIY formatting option for many independent authors, especially those planning to publish multiple books. And because you don’t need to purchase Vellum until you’re ready to generate your formatted files, you can download and trial Vellum for an unlimited amount of time.

Popular writing rules exist for a reason. Or do they? Writing is both an art and a craft. While language and storytelling serve as forms of self-expression, one can also learn structures and techniques that can help them become a better writer. Such guidance exists in every creative art, from painting to dancing, playing music, and beyond. Why, then, might it be problematic to follow common writing rules?

Inside every writer sits a creative well. Whenever you sit down to write, you dip your bucket into this well, drawing the energy you need to attend the work at hand. 

The energy in your creative well is a renewable resource, but the rate at which it renews depends on many factors. When surrounded by sources of inspiration, your well overflows, leading you to create at a frenzied pace. But when life becomes stressful, your creative well fills more slowly, with much of its energy diverted to other priorities. On most days, however, a writer’s creative well renews at a rate somewhere between the two extremes.

As writers, one of our core missions is to craft stories in which our readers can invest. Stories so captivating that readers fly through the pages.

The most opportune time for readers to set a book aside comes when they finish a chapter. In that space between one page and the next, readers ask themselves just how much they care about the fate of the characters. Do they need to know what happens next? If their gut says no, they’ll likely set the book aside—and there’s a decent chance they might not pick it up again.

To pen a deliciously addictive book, it’s therefore vital to consider the page-turning power of your chapter endings. Where a dull closing page will deter readers, a few intriguing lines can hook them in for yet another scene. But how, exactly, do you go about instilling readers with the need to know what happens next?

If you consider yourself a pantser, you likely don’t spend much (or any) time pre-writing your stories prior to drafting. Instead, you “write by the seat of your pants,” using your first draft to explore and develop your story. But just because you don’t find pre-writing helpful to your writing process doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of the power of story structure.