by Stephanie Dethlefs | Jan 11, 2022 | Accountability, Book Coaching, First Draft, Mindset, writing craft, writing life
Listen to full podcast episode here! >> Today I want to have a heart to heart with you about your writing life in 2022. I am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I think that if you want to do something, you should just do it no matter what time of year it is. ...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Dec 14, 2021 | Character Development, First Draft, Planning your book, Revision, writing craft
Why do your protagonist and other characters make the decisions that they do in your story? How do you keep those decisions from running away with your plot? Whether we’re talking the big decisions, those actions that change the course of the story, and the...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Dec 7, 2021 | Audience, First Draft, Planning your book, Writing for Young Readers, Writing middle grade, Writing YA
There are those who believe that writing for young readers is easier than writing for adults, but they couldn’t be more wrong! When we write for young readers, we need to consider the same things for them as we do adult readers, with the added understanding of their...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Nov 30, 2021 | First Draft, Reading for Writers, writing craft, writing life
VOICE. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot among writers. With good reason: it’s one of the most important skills you can master, because it’s what brings a narrator and/or a character to life. But it’s also one of the hardest to explain, to grab...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Oct 26, 2021 | First Draft, Revision, writing craft, writing life
Let’s talk about describing human characters well. That’s right, humans. Not fantastical flying creatures or beings from other worlds. Plain old, everyday humans. Which means that we don’t have the luxury of quite as much space on the page to describe them, or...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Oct 12, 2021 | First Draft, Planning your book, Revision, Uncategorized, writing craft
It’s a really common problem that a writer will be writing along, discovering what comes next as they write, and before they know it they have taken a path they weren’t expecting and wound up in some plot territory that they don’t really want to be in. Today...
