One of the most frequent questions I get from writers is: how am I (Mary) able to write so fast? Especially after they hear that I usually knock out my first draft in about 3 months…everyone wants to know how. 

So here it is: my answer. 

There’s one common habit shared by almost all writers who struggle with their writing pace—and I’m going to tell you what that is and how to fix it so that you can write more quickly if you want to. Let’s go.

Whenever I ask writers in my program what they’re struggling with, someone always says: help, my dialogue is terrible.

Dialogue can be really, really hard to nail. So why isn’t your dialogue working—why does it read just…wrong—and what can you do to fix it? Today, I’m going to give you five tools to diagnose and fix your dialogue.

There is so much writing advice out there that it can get overwhelming. Should you open your novel with the weather? Or never open it with the weather?

Should you include a dream sequence or never include a dream sequence?

Are memoirs done? Is publishing done? Ahhh!

Today, I’m going to debunk, as in bust open, the 3 most destructive writing myths that I see causing writers to suffer.

You want to improve as a writer—but you don’t want to spend all your time doing craft exercises when you can barely find time to work on your actual book. Does this sound like you?

If so, you’re in the right place. In this post, I’m sharing three exercises that will dramatically boost your writing skills and move you further along in your current creative writing project. Let’s go.

Welcome to another issue of ‘first draft pharmacy’ where we discuss and hopefully solve some of your biggest writing issues. Today, we’re going to talk about why your characters might be falling flat.

I’m going to share 5 questions to ask yourself to figure out why and fix the problem. Let’s go! 

What makes a novel count as “literary fiction?” Is it more impressive than commercial fiction? And what’s the difference?

Today, I’m going to give you my highly opinionated and polarizing take on this question as a novelist, reader, and human being. Stick around and read till the end if you want to either yell “amen!” at me or throw something at your computer screen. Ready?

There’s nothing quite like getting to that 80% point in a book and reaching a brilliant plot twist, is there? That moment when you feel like your mind has been blown because it’s so perfect! You never saw it coming, and yet it feels right, like of course that was going to happen!

So how do you write one of these? Today I’m going to give you three strategies to help you write a killer plot twist.

If you’re anything like me and avoid conflict like it’s your career, you may have also struggled with creating real, genuine conflict in your fiction. I certainly have. Luckily for us, fiction is not real life.

How do you develop a compelling, authentic conflict in your fiction that has actual tension in it? I’m going to give you four of my favorite strategies.

Before I was a published author, I felt like I was always on the Internet googling things about writing. How many words should my novel be? What contests could I enter? What classes should I take? What was the best writing software? What about the best place to find an agent? My questions were endless.

There are so many sites out there offering advice and services to writers—today, I want to share with you my 7 favorite websites for writers and aspiring authors and why I love them so much. Let’s go!