Developing Ethically Coherent Characters
Never underestimate the power of base moral conflict to drive tension and keep a plot moving. Ethical competence is core to effective character conflict.
Multiple and Simultaneous Submissions
Think carefully about the pros and cons of engaging in multiple and simultaneous submissions. Acceptance barriers aren't always someone else's fault.
5 Tips for Writing for the Literary Market
If you can position your work solidly within a constellation of known sellers, you’ll more easily convince a hesitant agent to advance your manuscript.
What Would Impel You to Murder?
Real-life cold-blooded murder is rare and complex. Authors, avoid using murder as casual plot devices because random premeditated murder isn't plausible.
The Expansion of the Grand River Writing Tribe
Join your tribe — the Grand River Writing Group offers resources and an online home for writers' groups located in West Michigan or online.
Planning to Write: The Dude’s Approach
A thoughtful step-by-step process for planning a novel helps to keep the project on track and aligned to industry expectations. But there's no right way!
Writing a Book in AsciiDoc with Version Control and Collaborative Authors
Using AsciiDoc plus a Git server streamlines the creative-writing process and supports both deep revision histories and collaborative writing.
Writing Tools
Every writer uses a toolkit to advance from thought to manuscript. In this post, I share my tools, with links to get you started.
Typing Your Way to Creativity
Using a typewriter to draft forces you to think carefully about what you've written, without the crutch of a delete or backspace key.
Take Our “Economics of Publishing” Online Course
Diction Dude is thrilled to announce the release of our first online course, The Economics of Publishing.