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From the instructors who have helped over 100,000 aspiring authors learn their craft.

Recent Articles

  • Pop art screen-print illustration of four different character portraits arranged in a grid, each panel in different bold flat colors
    Why Your Reader Keeps Swapping Your Characters’ Names
    Marcia and Maggie. Brynn and Lynn. Every novel has a pair of names the reader keeps swapping, and the writer never notices, because from inside the story each one feels distinct. A name does three…
  • Surrealist illustration of a writing desk in desert light with melting pocket watches draped over manuscript pages, one solid watch in the foreground
    What Expires If Your Scene Doesn’t Happen Today?
    Writers love to delay. Not on purpose. We delay by giving our characters things to do. The scene seems fine on the page. The phone rings, a visitor arrives, everyone’s busy. But nothing pushes toward…
  • 1940s pulp magazine style illustration of a woman reading a letter at a lamplit desk, with a thermos and car keys sitting unnoticed among the papers
    The Best Place to Hide a Clue Is in Plain Sight
    Somewhere in your draft is an object the whole plot depends on, and right now it’s wearing a spotlight. Readers resent clues that are truly hidden. They feel cheated when the reveal depends on information…
  • 1970s painterly illustration of engineers in a wood-paneled conference room with papers, coffee, and a whiteboard — depicting a scene from The Soul of a New Machine
    If You Cannot Name the Room, You Are Writing Summary
    Most non-fiction drafts read like reports. Weeks compress into paragraphs. Months into sentences. Everything flows in a smooth current of information. Nothing is ever in a room. Fifty years ago, Tracy Kidder figured out something…
  • Film noir illustration of a woman writer at a typewriter desk in a shadowy office with multiple clocks showing different times
    When Tense Shifts Work and When They Wobble
    Most novels pick a tense and stick with it. Smart move. But some of the best fiction in print shifts tense on purpose, and when it works, you barely notice. Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent opens…
  • Graphic novel style illustration of a woman writing at a desk late at night with abstract thought shapes floating above her head
    Three Ways to Format Internal Monologue (and Why Two Are Wrong)
    Your protagonist is thinking. How do you show it? Three approaches exist, and most manuscripts mix them up without knowing the trade-offs. Quotation marks: “I can’t believe she said that.” The old-school method. Readers confuse…
  • Colored pencil illustration of two letters on a wooden desk: one cut cleanly by copper scissors, the other dissolving into dust particles
    An Em Dash Cuts Dialogue Short. An Ellipsis Lets It Trail.
    Two punctuation marks. Same real estate at the end of a dialogue line. Opposite effects. “You don’t understand, I never meant to—” That em dash is a door slamming. The speaker got cut off. Maybe…
  • Tempera painting of three butterflies on a wooden desk: one pinned under glass, one vividly colored, one camouflaged on an open hand
    The Setting Details That Stick Are the Ones Nobody Noticed
    Most setting descriptions read like a museum catalog. The couch is against the wall. The lamp is brass. Cups on the counter. Every object pinned under glass, labeled, described in the same flat voice. The…
  • Watercolor sketch still life: a glass of amber whiskey beside an open book on a wooden desk, symbolizing a chapter ending on a lingering visual detail.
    End Your Chapter on an Image, Not a Lesson
    You wrote a strong chapter. Tension built, dialogue cracked, something changed. Then the last paragraph explains what it all meant. “And in that moment, Sarah understood that forgiveness was a choice she’d been avoiding for…
  • Soft chalk pastel illustration of a woman moved by a painting in a gallery while a docent tries to explain it behind her
    If Your Scene Needs a Caption, It’s Still a Draft
    You wrote a scene. Two characters argue in a kitchen. Dialogue crackles. Then you get nervous. The reader might not get it. So you add: “The tension between them had been building for weeks, ever…
  • Pen and ink illustration of a woman at a cafe table with a composed smile, with detail circles revealing her white-knuckled grip on a teacup, her tapping foot, and her thumb twisting a silver ring
    Your Characters Keep Frowning Through Every Emotion
    “She frowned.” “He looked angry.” “She smiled sadly.” Three guesses what the reader actually sees. Nothing. A blank face doing a generic thing. Frowning is the default setting for a face. Telling me a character…
  • Japanese woodblock print illustration of a traveler at a mountain crossroads looking through three differently shaped frames at the same village, symbolizing how different POVs frame the same story differently
    Your Genre Decides Your POV Before You Write Chapter One
    A thriller written in omniscient third person. A romance in distant third. A literary novel switching to second person mid-chapter because the writer thought it would be interesting. Each is a viewpoint mismatch. The reader…
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Your Instructors

Steve Alcorn

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

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.