Sometimes life gets away from you, and that's okay. I missed February's newsletter while grinding on my novel revisions—Please Subscribe is 50% through its 7th draft. Learn about my journey toward querying agents, the revised edition of The Great Salt Bowl, and the books keeping me inspired.
Some story ideas arrive fully formed, while others are just a single line waiting to grow. The Snowflake Method offers writers a systematic way to build from that one concept into a complete novel—layering plot and character iteratively, like a snowflake forming in the sky, until it becomes something beautiful.
Your world-building is brilliant, your magic system flawless—so why are readers dropping your book after three chapters? The problem isn't your ideas. It's your plot structure. Blake Snyder's Save the Cat beat sheet offers sci-fi and fantasy writers a flexible roadmap to balance stunning world-building with compelling narrative momentum that keeps readers hooked.
November showed me I can always do a bit more. With the challenge of writing 50,000 words in one month, I found I needed to use every free moment to write. Once I filled every moment with writing, I was easily hitting my word count each day. I believe you can do it too.
"Backstory is like seasoning—a little goes a long way, but too much ruins the dish. The 90/10 rule suggests readers only need to glimpse 10% of your character's history. The key is revealing past details when they become emotionally or narratively necessary, not when you think they're interesting."
Kenneth W. Myers 