In English classes, students are taught the importance of having an outline before writing the story. Outlining is important for nonfiction presentation of facts, history, and news in general. But...

For readers to create mental pictures from your stories, they need specific details of the way things are. We can make the picture stronger if we find ways to focus...

Find a picture that represents your female character. Where is she? What is she thinking, feeling, and doing?   With a vivid picture, you can find great words.   If...

Let all the senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste—cause your character’s world to make sense to your readers. One of the best ways to create vivid pictures is to ask...

We have seven days in a week and twenty-four hours in a day, but it all happens one second at a time. You anticipate what comes next, but you can’t...

Bestselling authors may write great paragraphs, but we can learn ways to make them even better. We strengthen the picture if we can find ways to describe the scene in...

Most people define passive voice as the use of the state-of-being verbs: is, am, was, and were. The claim is that we should avoid those verbs like a virus that...

If you just write He was angry, readers get the interpretation of the person without seeing or feeling the anger. If you really want to engage your readers, avoid telling...

Never in history has the storytelling perspective been more important than now. No longer can we simply tell what happened. That’s just boring news. Remember the good old days. A...

The older generation might have enough familiarity with Old English that the classics are still an enjoyable read, although many don’t know that when Juliet asked Romeo, “Wherefore art thou?”...