Revising Your Novel: From First Draft to Final Manuscript
Stop polishing sentences in chapters you'll cut. The 5-pass revision hierarchy that fixes structure before prose — and the diagnostic questions for each pass.
Series: Fiction Writing (Page 9)
Fiction WritingWriting Science Fiction That Sells
You built brilliant technology and nobody cares about your character. Science fiction craft that puts people first — with a subgenre comparison table and time travel rules.
Fiction WritingWriting Mystery, Historical, and Christian Fiction
Mystery readers demand fair play. Historical readers demand accuracy. Christian readers demand authentic faith. Genre-specific craft for writers who take their audience seriously.
Fiction WritingWhat Was the Big Bang, the First Nanosecond, and What Came Before
The Big Bang was not an explosion in space, it was the beginning of space, and the wildest events in cosmic history happened in the first sliver of a second. A plain-language tour of the first nanosecond, what the leftover…
Fiction WritingThings We Lost After the Year 2000 and Why They Mattered
Nostalgia is mostly a lie, but some of what we traded away after 2000 cost us something real. DVDs you actually owned, phone numbers in your head, the map of your own city, boredom that fed your imagination. A clear-eyed…
Fiction WritingHow to Write a Story From an Alien Point of View
Most writers who try to write a nonhuman character just put a human in a costume. Writing a real alien, animal, or AI point of view means subtracting yourself, one assumption at a time, until what is left is a…
Fiction WritingWhat a Mars Colony Will Actually Look Like
The Mars colony in the movies, a gleaming glass dome with green gardens and sunset views, would kill everyone inside a week. The real thing will be buried under meters of red dirt, built by robots before anyone arrives, and…
Fiction WritingShould You Only Use “Said” in Dialogue Tags? My Rules for Tags and Adverbs
Readers skim right past dialogue tags, so use the plain ones and don't bury anything important in them. My simple rules for said, tag variety, adverbs and action beats.
Fiction WritingCan You Put Someone Who Wronged You in Your Novel?
Writers have always turned people who hurt them into villains. Why a fiction disclaimer won't protect you, what makes a character too recognizable, and how to borrow a real villain safely.
Fiction WritingWriting Vampires: How to Build Your Own Vampire Rules
Can a vampire show up on thermal imaging, use a smartphone or trigger an automatic sink? How to build vampire rules from an origin, with lessons from Dracula 2000 and Blade.
Fiction WritingWhat Software Do Novelists Use to Write a Book?
Most novelists write in Word, and I do too. The free alternatives, when Scrivener or NovelCrafter is worth it, whether to handwrite the first draft, and which tools format a novel for print.
Fiction WritingHow to Write a Plot Twist Readers Never See Coming
A good plot twist is a surprise the reader could have seen coming and didn't. How to plant small hints, misdirect, avoid the twists that fail, and test yours with beta readers.