Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

Explore the emotional depth of character studies, where fascinating personalities and relationships drive the story. Learn why even quieter novels benefit from clear goals, and discover the crucible technique for trapping characters under pressure until conflict, fear, romance, and change intensify. Plus, a note on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s remarkable writing discipline and showing emotion through physical detail.

Six early-story pitfalls can quietly derail a promising novel, from static openings and exposition overload to unchecked interior monologue, vague goals, and trouble that arrives too late. The discussion also explores how great passages create musical prose, why reading aloud matters, and the personal experiences that can spark a lifelong writing path.

What makes a first sentence impossible to resist? Explore famous opening lines, story-launching tension, and the “so what” versus “now what” test. Discover how understatement adds comic contrast, how Jodi Picoult approaches writing time, and why the best endings stop soon after the central question is answered.

Humor belongs in nearly every kind of novel, from comedy and fantasy to horror and drama. Explore how exaggeration can turn ordinary experiences into larger-than-life comic moments while staying grounded in emotional truth. The discussion also tackles dialogue modifiers that accidentally make characters sound ridiculous, plus practical encouragement for writers committed to finishing and revising their books.

We writers should give readers what they want, and readers like dialogue.  Here is a technique for making our dialogue more engaging.  Also: the ten most beautiful words in the English language.  And: how to change telling to showing so the scene grips the reader.Support the showBuy the master class.

Discover a powerful fiction technique built around withheld emotion, from sorrow and romance to moments of joy. Then dive into the craft of point of view: controlling a scene through one character’s mind, maintaining a focused perspective, and avoiding accidental shifts that pull readers out of the story.

Thomas Cullen writes, "the brains of skilled writers are wired over many years to mimic the rhythms, structures, patterns and prose of their favorite authors.”   We can learn lovely rhythms by reading famous fiction passages.   And: how to overcome the possible grind of writing the middle of the novel.Support the showBuy the master class.

Do we have what it takes to write a novel?  Here are six questions we can ask ourselves that'll shed light on the issue.  Also, when should a writer make an exception to a tried-and-true rule of writing?Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more.  Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes.  The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars.  If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.Support the showBuy the master class.

Here are ten smaller techniques that'll improve our story, each maybe not big enough for a full segment but worthwhile to help make our story gripping and our sentences shine.  Also, here are thoughts about our story's ending; isn't HEA (happily-ever-after) a formula and cliche?  And: how to show rather than tell about the weather. Support the showBuy the master class.

What do Elizabeth Bennett, Anne Shirley, Frodo Baggins, Jo March, Harry Potter, and Huckleberry Finn have in common?  Readers love them.  We can create such a character, one readers will long remember and maybe reread the storyl just to be with the character again.  Also, adverbs and adjectives can weaken sentences.  Here is why and how to avoid them.Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more.  Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes.  The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars.  If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.Support the showBuy the master class.