Resources, insights, and inspiration for writers at every stage of their journey.
From the instructors who have helped over 100,000 aspiring authors learn their craft.
Recent Articles
- Why Most Chapters Give Readers Permission to Put the Book Down
Most chapters end too quietly. The writer finishes a scene, wraps it up cleanly, and moves on. Readers set the book down. A chapter ending has one job: make setting the book down feel like… - What Your Narrator Gets Wrong About Everyone Else
Your narrator is lying to you. The question is whether it’s on purpose. Every narrator is unreliable to some degree—they can only report what they notice, and what they notice reveals what they believe. The… - The Hidden Flaw in Most Memoir Drafts
Most memoir drafts have one fatal flaw: only one version of you shows up on the page. There’s the you who lived through the event—confused, scared, hopeful, probably wrong about everything. And there’s the you… - Your First Line Has One Job—and Beauty Isn’t It
Most first lines try to be beautiful when they should be unsettling. Your opening sentence has one job: make the next sentence unavoidable. Setting a scene doesn’t do that. A beautiful image doesn’t do that… - Why Your Most Emotional Scenes Fall Flat—And the Ten-Second Fix
Most writers who’ve read “show don’t tell” enough times have started showing—and then named the emotion anyway. Here’s what that looks like: “Her hands went cold. She was terrified.” The physical detail already did the… - The Deadpan Rule: Why Trying to Be Funny Makes Your Comedy Fall Flat
Writers who try to be funny usually aren’t. I’ve seen this pattern hundreds of times in student manuscripts. A character makes a wry observation. Another character responds: “Very funny, Ellen.” The first character smirks. The… - Why Your YA Characters Sound Like Adults—And How to Fix It
Most YA novels written by adults fail the same way: the teen characters sound like adults trying to remember what being 15 felt like. The problem goes deeper than vocabulary. It’s what the character cares… - The Wound at the Heart of Every Great Romance
Most romance novels get the obstacle wrong. The external conflict—he’s her boss, she’s leaving town next month, there’s a misunderstanding—is decoration. Readers don’t stay for the obstacle. They stay for the wound. Every compelling romance… - How Sentence Length Controls What Your Reader Feels
Most writers have a default sentence length. They write it through everything—action, reflection, grief, joy. They never vary it. And their prose reads flat as a result. Sentence length is one of the most direct… - Fix the Skeleton First: Why Most First Revisions Miss the Point
Most first revisions fail before they start. Writers open the draft, fix sentences—and miss the only questions that matter. You can’t see structure from inside the sentences. After weeks of drafting, you’re too close. You’ll… - The Three Ways to Deliver Backstory—and Why Two of Them Stall Your Story
“As you know, Bob, our family was killed in the fire 12 years ago” is the most mocked line in fiction writing—because we all know characters don’t talk that way. But I see the same… - The 3-Scene Test That Exposes Passive Protagonists
Every confrontation in your manuscript was initiated by someone. If that someone is almost never your protagonist, you have a passive protagonist—and passive protagonists bore readers even in high-stakes plots. Take any 3 scenes. Ask:…
About Writing Academy
Writing Academy offers comprehensive video courses for aspiring authors. Whether you’re writing your first novel, exploring screenwriting, or ready to publish, our self-paced courses provide the structure and guidance you need.
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Your Instructors
Steve Alcorn
USA Today bestselling author of twenty novels and non-fiction books, including mysteries, young adult novels, children’s books, and the acclaimed writer’s guide How to Fix Your Novel. Steve also founded Alcorn McBride Inc, which provides audio and video systems for theme parks worldwide.
Dani Alcorn
Author, instructor, editor, and mentor. Dani trained in screenwriting at Northwestern University and the University of British Columbia and worked as a professional medical writer. She is the author of screenplays and a science fiction novel.