by Stephanie Dethlefs | Jun 13, 2022 | Audience, First Draft, Planning your book, Revision
Have you ever read or heard a story that left you uninterested or unengaged or just plain bored? A trap that novelists can easily fall into is that of not knowing (or not sharing) what the novel is really about. In this episode we are exploring what questions to ask...
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 | Sep 28, 2021 | Accountability, Book Coaching, Getting feedback, Inner critic, Revision, writing craft, writing life
What happens after you’ve received some feedback, whether it was from a loved one, a beta reader, or an editor? We all know that getting feedback on your writing is an important part of the process, but where do you start when you’ve got pages and pages of notes?...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Sep 7, 2021 | First Draft, Planning your book, Revision, writing craft
When I think of tension in a story, my first thought is of suspense. We are waiting for something to jump out of a dark corner or for the final confrontation between hero and villain. Our bodies are tense, preparing for what my 13-year-old son calls “the jump-scare.”...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Aug 31, 2021 | Book Coaching, Mindset, Planning your book, Revision, writing craft, writing life
The idea of the elevator pitch comes from the old Hollywood days. Back then, a writer might happen to find themselves on an elevator with a studio exec. The wisdom was, you should always have a pitch for a movie ready when that happened. You have the executive stuck...
