So you’re a Christian who follows God with all your heart, and you keep getting this inner nudge that you’re supposed to write a novel. Maybe you even have a great idea for a story simmering in your imagination…

Handling Profanity as a Christian Novelist. I’m a Christian who typically doesn’t use profanity, but that doesn’t stop me from allowing my fictional characters to cuss if they want to. If you’re a novelist whose first love is Jesus, then the preceding quotation may have your eyes popping wide open…

Knowing when to start a new paragraph in a novel or short story should be a simple matter, but for many writers—especially beginning writers—it’s anything but. Like most aspects of writing, when it comes to paragraphs, there are rules, and then there are interpretations of the rules. So there’s definitely some…

Recently, I was helping our youngest daughter with a writing assignment about medieval knights, and she told me she couldn’t think of an adjective to modify a certain noun. She offered a few ideas and then just sat there, stuck. I could only say to her what I encourage novelists with…

Structure is one area that beginning writers struggle with the most. We all know our stories should have suspense, surprise, drama, intrigue, and all sorts of other spicy elements. But how do we create a structure that delivers all of these elements? Over the years of working with writers as…

Any Christian who sets out to write a book will automatically find him or herself struggling to balance three primary concerns, all of which happen to start with the letter “C”: Christ, commerce and content. In an ideal world, Christ will be at the top, for what higher motive could a Christian…

Right now I’m editing a novel by a writer who can’t seem to make up his mind regarding whether his story should be told in past or present tense. As a reader, I have a strong preference—past tense. As an editor, I have an even stronger preference—consistency…

When it comes to writing scenes for novels, writers would do well to behave like a good party guest—arrive late, and leave early. This is something we see all the time in film. We enter a scene as close to the climax as possible, and then leave either right before or right after the central conflict is resolved…

Determining the proper length for your novel is a key consideration when honing it for publication. On the one hand, you don’t want it to be too short, because that lowers the book’s perceived value. Although many readers are now opting for e-books, those still clinging to hard copies want to feel…

Many writers, especially first-time writers, are hesitant to hire an editor to help them prepare their manuscript for publication or to send out to agents and publishers. Ironically, this reluctance to engage with a qualified editor could be the very thing that stands between the writer…

What first-time author doesn’t dream of landing a lucrative book deal with a big publisher, complete with a six-figure advance, a book tour, media spots, the works? As lovely as this sounds, the sad reality is, these days such deals are about as rare as global warming skeptics at a meteorological…

What is a writer’s platform, and why is it so important? To answer the first question, your platform is your ability to draw attention to your name and your work. For example, are you a public speaker? Do you have a large following on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or other forms of social media…

Thinking back to how I defined science fiction, you could say that magic or the supernatural is the “disruptive technology” of the fantasy genre. This power can manifest itself in certain objects (the ring of power in The Lord of the Rings), places (the Overlook hotel in The Shining) or people…

Character development is the driving force of any good story, and yet, this is one of the most misunderstood elements of fiction writing. We’ve all heard of “flat” or “two-dimensional” characters. But how do we avoid this fatal flaw…

Something I see all too commonly in the fiction manuscripts I edit is an “info dump,” a chunk of exposition that bogs down the narrative by unloading a detailed character backstory or an elaborate—and lengthy—explanation of the story’s high concept and/or the history of the fictional universe…

Your story will stand or fall on the strength of its premise. It doesn’t matter how well it’s written on a line-by-line level. If your premise is weak, the rest of the story will crumble. But what is a premise, and how can you ensure yours is solid? I like to think of a premise in terms of the following simple mathematical formula…

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to Christian fiction is that too many Christian writers see storytelling as a means to an end—preaching a message—rather than an end in itself. When I encounter such writing, I tend to go off on a rant comparing two of the most well known Christian storytellers…

When discussing various types of fiction, it’s common for people to lump sci-fi and fantasy together, as if they were virtually the same genre. To be fair, on a general level, this comparison certainly holds true. For example, both sci-fi and fantasy stories involve imaginary worlds, strange creatures and forces …

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to edit a science fiction or fantasy manuscript, only to discover within the first few pages that the author hasn’t done his or her homework. What I mean by that is, the author has put little to no effort into working out the history, politics, economics, language…

In my previous article, I introduced the idea of the character-driven vs. the plot-driven story, arguing that if the plot drives the story, that’s tantamount to the writer driving the story. And if the writer is driving the story, that means the characters aren’t. As a result, such stories feel flat, cold, and unconvincing…

One of the most common problems with the fantasy and science fiction manuscripts I read is that they are plot-driven rather than character-driven. What I mean is, the author appears to have come up with an interesting high concept, plotted out a series of events and then inserted a cast…