Line editing means taking a microscope to every word of your story and making sure it says what you want say in the most impactful way, that it says exactly what you mean, that it clearly conveys your intentions, and most important, that it never draws attention to itself and gets in the way of the story or risks pulling readers out of it.

In this 90-minute live webinar, career book editor Tiffany Yates Martin will show you how to trim the fat from your prose that can lead to flabby writing and stall out or dilute the effectiveness of your story—and how to add the flavor, conveying your intentions in the most elegant and effective way, while expressing your unique voice that will set your story apart.

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If you want more online education, see the full list of WDU courses here.

Catch the Latest Episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents” Now!

Isabel Klee is best known for her work in fostering and rehabilitating dogs in New York City. As “Simon Sits” on social media, Klee chronicles the experience of caring for heartbroken animals and giving them a second chance at life.

Now, with her #1 New York Times bestselling memoir, Dogs, Boys, And Other Things I’ve Cried About, Klee is inviting readers into her personal orbit with stories of heartbreak and betrayal, of personal loss and times of growth, and the dogs that were there through it all.

Vote For Your Favorite “Your Story” Submission

Your Story #140

Out of nearly 100 entries, WD editors chose the following 5 finalists who wrote stories based on this photo. Vote for your favorite by using the comments section at the bottom of this article. Deadline to vote: May 29

Your Story #141

Out of over 100 entries, WD editors chose the following seven finalists. Vote for your favorite using the comments section at the bottom of this page. Deadline to vote: June 26

Enter Your Story #142

Write the opening line to a story based on the photo prompt below. (One sentence only.) You can be poignant, funny, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story. Email your submission to yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com with the subject line “Your Story 142.” Deadline to enter: June 22

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The post The Final Polish: Making Your Prose Serve Your Story appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Natalie discusses honoring and remembering queer history in her debut novel, Waiting on a Friend, her familial connection that helped bring a main character to life, and more.

Name: Natalie Adler
Literary agent: Julie Barer, The Book Group
Book title: Waiting on a Friend
Publisher: Hogarth
Release date: May 26, 2026
Genre/category: Literary fiction
Elevator pitch: New York City, East Village, 1984. A young woman with the power to see the ghosts of her friends is haunted by the one who refuses to return—a dazzling, big-hearted debut of friendship and community during a time of devastation and defiance.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I have always been fascinated by the layers of history in New York City, the feeling that the living and the dead share the same space generation after generation. I’m interested in what remains (or maybe what resists) and what changes, and what forces shape these changes. The worst years of the AIDS crisis in New York map onto mortal changes for downtown life.

It felt natural to me to approach the AIDS epidemic as a ghost story because ghosts show up when an injustice has been buried. There is also a queer resonance to the ghost because in their obscurity, they demand to be seen.   

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

About seven years: two years of kicking around an idea and five years of writing. I had something in mind about the AIDS crisis, ghosts, and gentrification, and eventually I figured out the conflict would be both internal (a woman who can see ghosts waits for the ghost of her recently deceased best friend to appear) and external (a shadowy business accelerates gentrification by promising newbies to the neighborhood to cleanse their homes of supernatural residue). And I had a vision of the novel ending at the Village Halloween Parade, which I wanted to feel like a release. Getting there was the work of years.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

This is my first novel, so it’s been one long learning moment. At some point I realized that everyone in publishing is making educated and experienced guesses about what readers want, but some people have very good taste, and it’s best to trust those people.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I had my aunt in mind as I was writing this novel because she was a hospice nurse during the AIDS crisis. I knew my aunt well, but I didn’t know her stories from that time period—she didn’t like to talk about it. She died suddenly in 2022, before I got to show her my work. One of my main characters is a nurse treating people with AIDS, and the more firsthand accounts I read from people who had done AIDS care work, the more I saw that I had anticipated what my aunt had been through emotionally. Knowing her character made it possible to imagine the stories she never told me. So, that was the surprise: I had her stories in me all along.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope that those who lived through this time period will feel that my book honored their feelings, struggles, and losses. I want them to know that their loved ones are remembered and that our memory of the AIDS crisis will not be erased. And I hope that younger people—or anyone, really—who don’t know about the AIDS crisis will learn that in the face of certain death and social revilement, there were people who took care of one another, who refused to abandon one another, and who refused to be victimized. I’ve taken heart from their lessons and I hope readers will, too.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

If you’re writing something historical, read everything you can. Read about the economic policy, read about the music scene. Nose around the archives. Find old magazines and know what conversations were happening.

No matter what you’re writing, remember your love for the project, and that even on the toughest writing days, it is a pleasure to spend time with your imaginary friends.

The post Natalie Adler: Remember Your Love for the Project appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Creating a Writer’s Joy List.)

The creative world can sometimes feel like a giant stopwatch with everyone sprinting in different directions. One writer publishes three books a year while another spends five years revising one manuscript. One lands success early while another discovers their voice later in life.

It’s easy to look around and think, “I should be farther along by now.”

That kind of anxiety is more common than most writers admit.

The Pressure to “Catch Up”

Social media has made comparison almost unavoidable. Writers are constantly exposed to highlight reels of success:

• Debut announcements
• Literary agents requesting manuscripts
• Viral marketing wins
• Huge preorder campaigns
• Authors quitting their day jobs

Meanwhile, many writers are trying to squeeze creativity into already packed schedules filled with work, family responsibilities, stress, and exhaustion.

The result is often time anxiety. Writers begin treating creativity like a race instead of a process.

They may think:

• “I’m too old to start.”
• “I should have published by now.”
• “Everyone else is moving faster.”
• “What if I run out of time?”

The truth is, writing careers rarely follow a neat timeline. Creativity does not operate like a factory conveyor belt where success appears after a certain number of hours logged.

Every writer moves differently.

There Is No “Correct” Writing Timeline

Publishing tends to spotlight young success stories, but plenty of writers find success later in life. Some begin after raising children. Others return to writing after career changes, burnout, or long creative breaks.

Stories do not care how old the writer is or what is going on in their lives.

Life experience often strengthens storytelling. A writer who has lived through challenges, relationships, failure, reinvention, or grief brings emotional depth to the page that cannot be rushed.

Some writers bloom early. Others take longer to grow into their voice. Both paths are valid. A delayed dream is not a failed dream. Remember that.

Why Writers Feel Behind

Writing is deeply personal, which makes delays feel emotional. When progress slows, many writers assume something is wrong with them instead of recognizing that life happens.

Creative energy is affected by:

• Mental exhaustion
• Financial stress
• Parenting
• Health issues
• Burnout
• Demanding jobs
• Caregiving responsibilities

Some seasons allow for daily writing sessions and rapid progress. Other seasons barely leave enough energy to look at a blank page. And there is no specific time limit for either season.

That does not make someone less of a writer.

Sometimes survival takes priority over productivity.

The Danger of Hustle Culture

Modern writing advice often pushes nonstop productivity. Write more. Publish faster. Build a platform. Market constantly. Repeat forever like a caffeinated hamster wheel.

While consistency matters, constant pressure can drain creativity rather than support it.

Burnout has a sneaky way of turning something joyful into something stressful. Writers who obsess over speed may lose connection with the very thing that made them want to write in the first place.

A sustainable writing life usually looks much quieter.

It often includes:

• Writing during lunch breaks
• Slow progress on difficult drafts
• Learning through mistakes
• Taking breaks when needed
• Building consistency over perfection

The goal is not to write at someone else’s pace. The goal is to keep going without completely emptying the creative tank.

Deadlines Are Tools, Not Weapons

Deadlines can absolutely help writers stay focused. They create structure and momentum. But there is a difference between healthy accountability and constant panic.

Some writers become so anxious about finishing quickly that they make the process harder on themselves. Anxiety clouds creativity. It turns writing into pressure instead of exploration.

A healthier approach is creating goals with flexibility.

Instead of:

“I must finish this novel in three months, or I’ve failed.”

Try:

“I want to make steady progress while protecting my creativity and mental energy.”

That shift may sound small, but it changes the entire tone of the process.

Learning to Trust Your Pace

One of the most important things a writer can do is stop measuring progress against everyone else’s timeline.

Fast does not always mean better.

Some writers draft quickly but revise heavily. Others write slowly and carefully. Some publish frequently while others spend years shaping their one meaningful project. Different methods create different rhythms.

Small progress still counts:

• One paragraph counts
• One revised chapter counts
• Brainstorming counts
• Rest counts too

Creative pauses are not always failures. Sometimes stepping away allows the mind to refill. Many writers discover breakthroughs after periods of rest, not nonstop pressure.

Writing is not wasted simply because it took longer than expected.

In many cases, time improves the work.

The Clock Doesn’t Define the Writer

Most writers will probably hear the ticking clock from time to time. Ambition naturally creates pressure. Creative people often carry big dreams alongside self-doubt, and that combination can make every delay feel larger than it really is.

But a writing career is not won by speed alone.

The writers who last are often the ones who learn how to protect both their creativity and themselves. They learn that success does not have one schedule. They stop treating every pause as proof of failure.

Stories arrive in different ways. Some come quickly like summer storms. Others take years to form fully.

Both still matter.

A writer is not behind simply because their path looks different from someone else’s. Sometimes the slower road is the one that creates stronger stories, deeper growth, and a career that actually lasts.

The post Time Anxiety and the Writer’s Clock: Making Peace With Your Pace appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Arushi discusses forcing herself out of her own head to write her new YA novel, Rani Deshpande Takes the Wheel, her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Arushi Avachat
Literary agent: Rebecca Rodd and Kerry Sparks, LGR Literary
Book title: Rani Deshpande Takes the Wheel
Publisher: Wednesday Books / Macmillan
Release date: May 19, 2026
Genre/category: Young Adult
Previous titles: Arya Khanna’s Bollywood Moment
Elevator pitch: After a challenging freshman year of college, Rani is determined to get her life back on track—but her packed summer checklist is disrupted by a detour right into love.

Bookshop | Amazon
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What prompted you to write this book?

During my freshman year of college, I felt an itch to capture the growing pains of starting university and forging your own path in the world. For so many of us, especially immigrant daughters, it’s college and not high school that serves as our true young adult landscape. College offers a first taste of independence, far from the monitoring (though loving) gaze of over-involved families. But what happens when you feel like you’re doing college wrong? Rani picks up at this inflection point.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Over five years! Rani lived in my head for so long before I started drafting. I started college in the fall of 2020, which is when the idea for the novel first began taking shape. Over the next couple years, I focused on editing and publishing my debut novel, Arya Khanna’s Bollywood Moment. But Rani always simmered in the background, and by senior year of college, I had begun drafting. Now, almost two years post-grad, she’ll be in readers’ hands!

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Everyone had warned me about the sophomore slump, but I didn’t take it seriously until I was in the thick of it. My drafting experience with Arya had been so private and personal; Rani was the first work I’d ever written on deadline, with the guarantee of an audience. Nothing was worse for my creative process than the knowledge that my story would be read. I really had to force myself out of my own head while drafting and build more discipline as a writer. Being an author had been my dream job since childhood. With Rani, I had to learn to actually treat my craft as a job.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

So much of drafting is about excavating the story you’re actually trying to tell, and Rani was no different. The story morphed so much from initial inception to final draft. I wrote the first act of Rani as my honors thesis at UCLA, and at that time, I thought I wanted to write a loose reimagining of Emma. Save for an eccentric father figure and a Knightley-inspired love interest, this framework fell away almost entirely as I reevaluated what felt most pressing to me. I really learned to let myself veer off course and let a story take me in new directions while drafting Rani.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

It’s never too late to make things better for yourself. Rani feels behind in so many arenas of her life, and over the course of the summer, she has to force herself out of sitting in her feelings and instead become proactive about building a happier life. I hope Rani’s story can be a reminder to readers that even in the face of disappointment, you’re in charge of your own life, and something better always looms on the horizon.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

You are your most important reader. We write because we must, because we have an impulse to work through our feelings and experiences and questions in this medium. Even as you pursue a public career in writing, I think it’s so important to keep your practice sacred and protected from outside noise. Write the story you feel desperate to read, that feels most true to your heart.

The post Arushi Avachat: You Are Your Most Important Reader appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Don’t Burn the Diary.)

I was supposed to be in a national park, jotting notes for the nonfiction book about joy my publisher had actually bought. Instead, I was in a hospital bed with tubing snaking from the port in my chest, winding like a river over the yellow journal on my lap, which I opened again and again between terrifying episodes fighting to stay alive. Mysterious and severe anaphylactic shock had almost stolen my life. And every few hours, it attempted assassination again—skin erupting in flames, itchy over every inch, begging my body to keep breathing until a nurse or doctor would stab me with epinephrine yet again.

My pen was my only tether to agency in a reality that made no sense. “I intended to fill these pages with adventures and awe,” I scrawled onto one page. “I will fill them instead with my fight to stay alive.”

Writing a memoir had long been my dream, but like most writers whose lives have not launched them like rocket ships into the galaxy of fame, I had been told by both my literary agent and publishing houses that memoirs are almost impossible to publish unless you are a celebrity. And let’s be honest—no one from HBO nor Columbia Records has ever heard the name K.J. Ramsey. I had previously published two nonfiction books that blended my expertise as a trauma therapist with personal narrative and theology, books my former publisher affectionately called “stealth-help.” I had also published a collection of poems. Even with a dedicated community of readers and a strong sales record, it was made more than clear to me that reaching for the genre of memoir as a non-famous human was like self-identifying as Icarus—trying to fly too close to the sun. “It’s all about positioning,” my editor at the time had said. “Memoirs are just so hard to sell.”

When life positioned me near the edge of death, I could no longer care so much about positioning myself and my work to please anyone, including publishers. All I had space to care about was survival. And the many other humans struggling to not give up on their stories when life picks them plot twists they would never wish on even their meanest childhood bullies.

Writing, in my experience, is a living and continuous conversation with life. I’ve journaled since I was a teen, carrying one everywhere so I can jot down sensory details, thoughts, and the start of poems as I wander through my days so nothing gets lost. My journal is the conduit of the ongoing conversation that both shapes me and my art.

Fueled by the frenetic energy of not knowing whether I’d survive the next year—let alone the next week—plus the high-dose steroids that were keeping me both alive and hyper-verbal, I filled the rest of that journal in the hospital fast. I spilled my fears. I noted my differential diagnoses. I told story after story of the providers who were keeping me alive and the nurses who held me when I wept in my hospital bed, shaking with panic attacks at night.

When I started writing the book that was Not Supposed to be a Memoir, I had strangely sensed deep within myself that I needed to write it by hand. I had started that yellow journal in a rooftop tent in the middle of Nowhere, Nevada, just weeks before, on the first night of what was supposed to be a whole summer of national park adventures. I had dared myself to go back and forage through the landscapes where I had first encountered joy in my childhood—a traumatic childhood—to find the good that had most preserved my life through over a decade of severe chronic illness as an adult. Instead, I was thrust into even more trauma and too sick to even hold my body up to type at a computer. But my journal dared me to keep foraging.

As a mushroom nerd, I love the way foraging in a forest slows me down enough to notice the tiniest signs of life at the bottom of my view. Wonders like phallic purple cortinarius and bird’s nest fungi are hidden right where hikers speed past. In the forest, you’ll miss seeing so much goodness unless you slow down and look for it.

Choosing to count my worst days as worthy of documentation changed how I experienced them. Telling myself my own story changed the way I lived it. While my near-death experiences stopped, mysterious and completely debilitating sickness didn’t. I felt utterly powerless, rapidly losing my ability to walk and work, exhausted by self-advocacy in a healthcare system that prefers to gaslight women in pain than see us as partners in healing. I didn’t get to choose the horrific things that happened to me, but I could choose to make something from them. Lifting my pen was a daily choice to reclaim my power by looking for love, kindness, and joy in a landscape full of pain.

In my previous books in different genres, I had the privilege of writing about pain with more past-tense perspective. For this book, I knew both that I would eventually have to fulfill my end of the contract with a finished manuscript whether my life was miserable or not and that if I stopped writing, I would probably sink so far into despair that I might entirely drown.

I also knew I was not the only one drowning. I’ve never craved a self-help book when I am sinking in sickness or despair. I’ve craved stories. I’ve longed for poetry and prose honest enough about the dark to pierce mine with light. So, I quietly kept writing in the journals that I now knew needed to become a memoir. “Well, life handed me a page-turning, wild story,” I told my agent, “so I’m just going to tell it so beautifully and fiercely that by the time we show my publisher, they won’t be able to say no.”

I don’t exactly recommend hoodwinking your publisher, by the way. But I do recommend letting your life guide your genre and letting your work be a gift to your own survival first.

For months, I wrote my way through my worst experiences. And then for many more months, I sat down at my desk, sandwiched between two major surgeries, rebuilding my stamina hour after hour with my journals to rewrite the raw material of a story that nearly ended short. Writing The Place Between Our Pains pulled me out of bed and back into my life instead of waiting for everything to get better first.

“Even when the truth isn’t hopeful,” Andrea Gibson writes, “the telling of it is.” Re-telling my story gave me a refuge to survive it. Writing my memoir did not redeem the pain. It gave me a way to reclaim parts of myself I lost to ruin. It gave me a way to look for the joy that holds us together, even when we can barely hold on.

Check out K.J. Ramsey’s The Place Between Our Pains here:

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The post How the Memoir I Wasn’t Supposed to Write Saved My Life appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(How to Savor Creative Adventures.)

Not only was this window into my mother’s psyche painful for me to read, as I, after all, was one of those children, it was also elucidating. I was interested in the haziness a parent can fall into, how they can lose track of their kids, or their kids can get blurry, even when the kids are right there, needing them. 

When I sat down to start my new novel, The Gulf of Lions, I was thinking about that essay of my mother’s. I was also thinking about how hard Gen-X parents have worked to transform parenting as we know it—one thing I hear from fellow Gen-Xers, over and over, is how much they care to repair the hurts from their own childhoods, pouring themselves into their own parenting. I am very proud of my generation, actually; I think we have totally retooled parenting for the better (Millennials, you can thank us). The truth is that, Gen-X parents want to be friends with their kids; most Gen-Xers have tried more effective ways of redirecting than corporal punishment; we’ve wanted to listen and communicate, never shutting down; and, more often than not, we want to support our kids, no matter whom they love, whomever they want to be.

There was a third thing that was entering my brain via osmosis: I was listening, over and over again as I ferried my sons hither and yon, to Homer’s The Odyssey read by Ian McKellen. And I kept asking myself, “I wonder how this story would change if it were about women adventuring, not men?” I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, who goes looking for his father. If I were able to drop into his heart, what would it say, I wondered? What if Telemachus were a daughter?

All of this was intellectual, emotional. It wasn’t going to help me—yet—put down those all-important first sentences. I knew I needed something I could hang my hat on. So, I figured out three basic points to add to my three thoughts (I like the number three) I was sure of. They were:

1. My main character, Alice, was going to take her two daughters, Sophie and Iris, on a once-in-a-lifetime road trip across France after Covid lockdown, after a long and hard battle with stage 2B breast cancer, and after her husband has cheated on her.
2. Her older daughter, Sophie, almost 14, will be deep in the throes of teenage angst and moodiness. But in addition to that usual teenage stuff, I knew, somewhere inside me, that I wanted to also capture some of the ways kids absorb and carry the trauma of their parents’ flawed marriages and familial dysfunction. Kids are so porous, so totally absorbent—they know, they always know everything—I needed to go deep into that. I was familiar with some of that story from my own childhood. 
3. Lastly, I knew that Iris, the younger eight-year-old daughter, would be hovering in that rich territory where she is still young enough to play with Lego and sleep with stuffies. But she’s also just starting to turn the corner from small child to pre-teen who is beginning to catch on to some of the subtext of the adult world. I wanted to make sure that there were gaps between what she understood and also what was elusive for her—which made her feel left out, lonely, confused. (I was a younger child, after all!)

OK, so I had three thought bubbles and three concrete character arcs. The rest I’d have to figure out as I wrote, feeling my way through it.  

I love making up a world in fiction. There is something about the process of falling into a story, when you have no idea of the direction, that I find so liberating. I know that there are novelists who plan their books out, right down to the last notecard. And I totally respect that. But for me, that takes some of the honesty out of it. I like to write moment to moment, living the entire experience along with my characters. Usually, after the first few weeks of writing, I know where my book is going to end—what’s going to happen. But between that and my first lines, it’s all unchartered and there for the taking, day by day.

As my pages accumulated, I realized I was writing a deep mother/daughter story. And as I wrote, there was a theme that hovered over the writing: What if a mother wants to break free? Children, I reasoned, are often the collateral damage when parents, but especially mothers, try to seize their lives. I had that Queen song in my head, “I want to break free…”

And I was thinking about how, for instance, when my two sons come home from school, I want to make them a snack—and these days, they are teens and both athletes. We’re talking two grilled cheese each, a huge glass of milk, three brownies. On the one hand, I LOVE making them these sandwiches and pouring the lovely whole-fat milk into Bonne Maman jars. On the other, I sort of resent it because I want to get back to work, there’s still so much day left, and I know that in two hours I’m going to be making dinner again and then it’s clean up time and bedtime and more and more of my wishes and dreams will have been attenuated. I’ve been a mom for 18 years by now!

So, with Alice, I was thinking: This woman has come out of Covid lockdown, gone into an even more serious lockdown of cancer; her husband has cheated on her, and she gets a greenlight on a magazine article to go to France with her two daughters. My God, she would want to break free. So, while there, she reconnects with sensuality—her own body’s sensuality, the salty water of the Mediterranean, the luscious French food, the sunlight, and beautiful people she meets along the way.

But—and this was the hard part for me to write—I knew that nothing would be free. Especially for a middle-aged mother of two. She wants to break free, but freedom has its reckless costs.

So I was always walking the knife’s edge of how people in a family are so connected that whenever one person tries to save herself, she may be inadvertently hurting her children, her partners, or, even, perhaps, most dangerously her own ideas of who she believes she is, or was.

Check out Caitlin Shetterly’s The Gulf of Lions here:

Bookshop | Amazon

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The post What Happens When a Mother Wants to Break Free? appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(6 Screenwriting Tips to Improve Your Novel.)

That’s good advice. But when it comes to backstory, it’s only part of the picture. Ask a group of readers why they loved a particular novel or what has kept them returning to a favorite series, and most likely, they’ll tell you that above all, it’s the characters who’ve hooked them. They care about them and find them engaging and interesting.

If we want our readers to care about our characters, we must care about them as well. Our characters must become fully realized people we know well. And while every writer’s process is different, I’ve found no better way to develop my characters than spending time exploring their backstories before I begin drafting my novels. I’m especially interested in discovering what experiences have shaped them into the people they’ve become, with all of their strengths, flaws, and fears. Why do they react to situations the way they do? Make the choices they do?

Perfect characters are incredibly boring, not to mention irritating. But to understand a character’s flaws, we must dig deeply into their past. For example, Caitlin O’Connor, the protagonist in my novel, Missed Cue, is a dedicated homicide detective and a caring friend. But she has a glaring flaw. She keeps getting involved with married men.

This makes no sense until she finally gets into therapy and comes to terms with the messages she’s internalized about women from her father, a police chief whom she idolized. The smart career women he admired avoided the distractions of marriage and family. “Good mothers” (like Caitlin’s mom) stayed home fulltime to raise their children. Intellectually, Caitlin knows this is absurd. After all, her closest friend has a wonderful teaching career and a family. But emotionally, she’s been deeply affected by her dad’s beliefs. Affairs with married men offer some emotional and physical connection, while not in any way threatening her singular focus on her demanding career. And even though her father has died, I think that subconsciously, she’s continued to seek his approval.

By the end of Missed Cue, Caitlin has shed her married lover and embarked on the beginnings of a much healthier relationship with a divorced dad. Of course, her story doesn’t end there, and one of the joys of writing a series is that we get to explore the continued growth and development of our characters and their personal lives. In the sequel, Death in the End Zone, Caitlin’s romance has blossomed, and her new love is eager to get married. But she still feels terrible anxiety about moving their relationship “to the next level.” This makes no sense until you know her backstory and can empathize with the lingering power of the childhood messages her father sent her. We are all, after all, works-in-progress!

Needless to say, all of this makes for a much more interesting story than “Caitlin met a lovely man, and they wasted no time tying the knot.” And this subplot complication comes from exploring her backstory. As Elizabeth George points out in her craft books, Write Away and Mastering the Process: From Idea to Novel, ideas for conflict and plot complications emerge from careful attention to character development. Romance novelists know this well. What can keep two people apart who are obviously strongly attracted to one another until they finally achieve their “happily ever after”?  Their reluctance to act on their feelings is often due to the emotional wounds they’ve acquired from their childhoods and previous relationships.

Moreover, puzzling behavior can only be understood within the context of our characters’ backstories. For example, in my novel Missing Mom, a mother suddenly disappears. Her daughter rejects the circumstantial evidence that points to suicide. Would a mom planning to take her kids to the mall for some back-to-school shopping later that day suddenly decide to take her own life? What would make this devoted mother with a successful career and a good marriage disappear? As my protagonist discovers, the answers lie in her mother’s past—in other words, in her backstory.

Of course, it’s absolutely true that in exploring our characters’ backstories, many of the details we discover will never see the light of day in our novels. Readers are not apt to care about our adult character’s childhood dog or the best friend in third grade who moved away.

But for my writing process, I’ve found that going into this level of detail about my characters and their lives is extraordinarily helpful. Above all, I want readers to care about my characters. And that always begins with my caring about them, which comes from getting to know them intimately.

Check out Lynn Slaughter’s Death in the End Zone here:

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Fran Fabriczki 

Porcupines 

(Literary Fiction, April, Summit)

“Young single mother Sonia’s precocious daughter, Mila, drags her on hilariously disastrous school trip from L.A. to San Francisco, during which Sonia’s checkered past as a Hungarian immigrant is revealed.” 

Writes from:  London, U.K.

Pre-Porcupines: I had only ever written short stories before this novel, and I hadn’t made much progress in sending those stories out. I knew I wanted to write a novel, but I was hesitant to begin before I felt I had practiced the craft. Of course, it turns out there are certain things you can only learn by writing the whole novel, but at least I felt confident making a start.

Time frame: I started writing the novel at the end of my MA, as my dissertation; from then on, it took about three years total, during which I moved houses, started and ended a new job, and gestated a baby. There were periods of feeling too ill to write at all and then also whole months where I wrote through my work lunch hour consistently. I just had to believe it would all add up eventually.

Enter the agent: My dissertation was awarded the Curtis Brown Prize, which was judged by two brilliant agents, Cathryn Summerhayes and Sabhbh Curran. They told me to get back in touch when I’d finished the novel, which I did. Off the back of this award, I had gotten some interest from other agents in the meantime, but in the end, it felt really great to go with the agents who had loved this project from the beginning, essentially plucking it out of obscurity.

Biggest surprise: I used to work in publishing, so the process itself was familiar to me, and yet, even though I knew there could be long periods of silence before the book is published, and that my publishers were working hard in the background, it still felt strangely isolating sometimes to be out there alone waiting for something to happen. My agent’s advice was to write as much of my next project as I could, which did save my sanity.

What I did right: During my master’s in creative writing, which was a year, I spent time experimenting with different tones and styles, so that by the time it got to the end of the year, I knew how I wanted to write the novel. Then I used my very last workshop to test the novel idea, like a focus group—my peers’ feedback was invaluable and helped me get going with the project in earnest. You can only really focus on the writing and hope the rest will follow.

What I would have done differently: We sold the book a week before I gave birth, and my publishers were very kind about giving me as much time as I needed to get to my edits after I had the baby, but I decided to get back to work probably sooner than I should have. The work went well, but I went a little crazy.

Platform: I am not very active on social media, and I generally find it interferes with writing, but I am working on it, because I’d like to be able to connect to readers directly.

Advice for writers: On the inside cover of my writing notebook for this project, my partner put a Post-it that said ‘Stop starting, start finishing’—the single most useful advice I’ve received. Ideas are nice, but you have to finish something (a story, a novel) and then iterate, otherwise you’ll never know if it has legs.

Next up: I’m trying to get as much of my next novel written before publication. I love writing and I have lots of ideas, so fingers crossed I get to keep doing this.

Website: FranFabriczki.com

Kristen Argyres 

My Thorns For Your Roses 

(Romantasy, April, Conquest Publishing) 

“After falling for the faerie that cursed her, 24-year-old Lark must choose between a marriage of convenience and risking it all to save the love of her life from his cannibal ex.” 

Writes from: Bloomington, Ind. 

Pre-Thorns: I cut my teeth on fan fiction before I became inspired to write my own original stories—I wrote over a million words before I started My Thorns For Your Roses. I also dabble in short stories to flex my creativity, several of which have been published in anthologies. A few of them tie into the world of My Thorns For Your Roses.

Time frame: I started late November 2022 and finished my first draft the following May. That draft was a monster at 129k words, and I changed my mind about several plot points halfway through. The story made no sense.

By my first query in November 2023, I had trimmed 17k from the manuscript. Like many authors, I queried too early, unaware of industry standards or expectations.

It took a village, but I finally got my manuscript polished in time for the inaugural #SmallPitch event in July 2024 and a full request from Brittany that same day. I signed in early September 2024 to be published in April 2026.  

Enter the agent: I heard about Conquest in the comments on QueryTracker early on in my querying journey, but they were not open to submissions until July 2024. I had not considered alternative paths publishing before, but I liked the creative freedom that came with working with a small press. I decided to try the first #SmallPitch event, which allowed authors to pitch their books directly to traditional independent publishers.

I’m so glad I did! Publishing is a slow industry, and unlike the agented route, I didn’t have to immediately dive back into the trenches by going on sub with publishing houses. Once Brittany made an offer of publication, My Thorns For Your Roses had a release date.

Biggest surprise: There are several routes to publishing, and they all have their pros and cons. Small, independent publishers are more willing to take risks and push the boundaries.

Secondly, you are the author of your own story. While editors, writing groups, and beta readers are fantastic resources and can provide valuable insight, not every suggestion will work for the story you want to tell. Stay true to yourself.

What I did right: I learned to get over my own ego and take constructive criticism seriously. Rejection stings, even when wrapped in compliments. Passes pile up and can chip away at your confidence, but when experts in the industry take the time to tell you what you’re doing well, your weaknesses, and how to improve—take the advice and run with it!

What I would have done differently: I would have spent more time editing my manuscript and learning about the industry standards and expectations. My first few queries were cringe-worthy and did not have comp titles. Sometimes all it takes is an extra month or two to make a good story great. Take your time!

Platform: I started out writing fan fiction and had a small, but loyal reader base through AO3 [ArchiveOfOurOwn.org], but admittedly, I haven’t dedicated the time and energy to writing fan fiction now that I have books I need to work on.

I’m still figuring out social media and what kinds of posts to create to engage potential readers, but pretty book covers and character art are huge draws. Engaging with other authors and potential readers is also important.

Advice for writers: Like any other skill, storytelling takes practice. (That means no AI, it stunts your creative process.) The more you write—and read the works of others—the more you learn and the better your craft. Keep writing!

Next up: My Thorns For Your Roses can stand alone, but I’m working on the rest of the trilogy now. Book 2, Along the Hawthorn Path, is scheduled for release in October. There’s a bit of a time skip between books 1 and 2, so Cairnwood looks a bit different than it did at the start of My Thorns For Your Roses.

The final book, Holly, Oak, & Thorn, will come out in 2027. That’s one of the beauties of working with a small, indie publisher—my readers don’t have to wait for years between books in a series.

I have a few other ideas for projects beyond that. I want to expand one of my published horror short stories into full-length novel, and I have a fun idea for a book inspired by the marriage-that-never was between Charlemagne and Irene of Byzantium, but I’m focusing my creative energy on The Cairnwood Reel series for now.

Website: AuthorKristenArgyres.com

Sayuri Stabrowski 

Arlo All Over Again 

(Picture Book, April, Free Spirit Publishing) 

“A big-city tale about how friendship builds confidence—and the unexpected joys that come from trying new things.” 

Writes from: NYC (specifically Upper Manhattan in a neighborhood called Washington Heights).

Pre-Arlo: I was writing other picture book manuscripts and trudging through the querying trenches trying to land representation, a book deal, or both.

Time frame: Arlo All Over Again was born from my experiences as a mother of young children. As a mom of three young boys, I have delighted in watching them navigate playground politics and learn to make new friends, take physical and social risks, and develop their comfort levels and boundaries through play. The protagonist’s story was inspired by a few things all at once: my middle child’s reluctance to branch out and try new things as a youngster, my neighborhood’s lovely playgrounds and parks where so many friendships have been made and nurtured, my children’s ability to fall in friendship-love with someone new whilst building a fort or playing a game of pretend and their desire to have future play dates with this new person forever-after, and lastly, an anecdote that a fellow mom-friend shared with me that involved her child developing a fast friendship with someone over the course of an afternoon, losing touch with that new friend for months afterward, only to rediscover them in a summer camp later that year. All of these bits of my real life were points of inspiration that helped me build out my characters, plot and setting until they became the story it is today!

Enter the agent: I am lucky enough to be represented by the wonderfully supportive, thoughtful, and kind Sarah Stephens at Red Fox Literary. I signed with Sarah after attending the SCBWI conference in Fort Lauderdale in spring 2023 and getting a manuscript critique from Karen Grencik (one of the founders of Red Fox). In my meeting with Karen, I discovered that she did not have the capacity to sign new clients, but that she thought I would be a perfect match for Sarah. She had already shared my manuscript with Sarah and was excited to report that Sarah wanted to meet me and read more of my work. I was absolutely thrilled and after a few weeks of agent-client “courtship” (including sharing more work, getting help with the contract and asking all of the questions), we signed! 

The wild thing about my experience is that I actually already had the deal for Arlo with Free Spirit in hand before I met Sarah. After participating in a social media pitch contest, Free Spirit reached out to ask about Arlo All Over Again. I subbed the manuscript and got an offer pretty quickly, but had no representation. The Free Spirit team was very kind and flexible in giving me loads of time to try to find representation before signing the contract for the publishing deal. Once Sarah and I signed, she took a closer look at the deal and led the charge in negotiating it so that I could sign it a couple of months after we started working together. Sarah’s keen literary agent skills definitely helped me land the right deal for Arlo and made me realize how much I didn’t know about all of the ins and outs of publishing books!

Biggest surprise: Something that surprised me during the publishing process for Arlo All Over Again was that finding a deal on my own and having it in hand when querying agents did not necessarily help as much as I thought it might. I naively thought I had a golden ticket in hand when I got the offer, and was expecting to be able to sign with an agent instantly. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that there are just no silver bullets or golden tickets! Some agents wanted to examine the deal but still based their offer on my entire body of work, while others didn’t discuss the deal at all in our negotiations, and still others offered to help broker the one deal for me, but weren’t ready to sign into an agent-client relationship off the bat. I knew I was looking for a supportive, editorial agent who wanted to be part of my career and not the one project, so it helped narrow my search, but it was something that surprised me as I began querying after the book deal offer had been made.

I think the biggest takeaway I got from the experience was that publishing is a very relationships-based industry, so breaking into it can feel daunting, if not impossible. However, if you look closely enough and are willing to put yourself out there for critique, feedback and learning, there are lots of opportunities to meet people and hone your craft at the same time. Taking workshops, trying the many contests that exist online, exploring courses, making connections through critique groups and joining big organizations like SCBWI are all great ways to open doors for writers at all levels. There are no shortcuts to getting representation or a book deal, so we all have to keep writing, revising, learning, and connecting as we work towards signing with an agent or landing a deal. Without attending the SCBWI conference and signing up for a manuscript critique with Karen Grencik, I may never have met Sarah or sold Arlo All Over Again. I am eternally grateful to opportunities such as those available at conferences and through writing organizations like SCBWI, Highlights, and Inked Voices (among others)!

What I did right: Searching for an agent and checking your email daily for that highly anticipated, seemingly elusive yes is an emotionally and physically exhausting process. My agent tracker was full of red and orange cells denoting the many rejections I had piling up in my inbox during my time in the querying trenches. Although I was often demoralized by the process, I actually did enjoy the agency I had in researching agents, revising my query letter and reaching out to folks who were open to submissions. The cold queries did not lead to a lot of success for me, but they gave me a lot of practice in courage, in taking and implementing feedback, and in building the thicker skin necessary to be an author. 

What did work for me came as a result of all that time spent researching agencies and seeking representation because as I explored various corners of the children’s book world, I discovered contests and organizations that supported authors in their craft and granted them access to the decision-makers in the industry. Once I began to engage in the world of children’s books more actively, I learned how to present my work, how to find critique partners and how to examine my work critically for the market. Taking workshops, meeting other authors, signing up for critiques with industry professionals and putting my work and myself out there were the steps that I think really propelled me towards my agent and my book deal. I highly recommend exploring the Highlights Foundation and all that they have to offer to children’s book authors of every stripe, Inked Voices and their awesome seasonal line-ups of workshops and critique groups and SCBWI’s local and national programming for children’s book writers and illustrators looking for support, learning and connection. I have also been active in 12×12, PB Rising Stars, Storystorm, and other annual contests and support circles. For some of these experiences, I have invested financially to join, while others are completely free, and all offer scholarships and financial assistance to try to keep access available to all creators. Meeting new people, sharing my writing, and learning with and from peers have continued to be the most rewarding parts of engaging in the publishing industry. Even now that I am agented, I seek support, learning, and connection through these organizations and my critique groups so that I can continue to develop my writing and nurture the relationships I’m making in this industry. 

What I would have done differently: I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t think there is any one way or right path to publication, and my journey with Arlo has certainly been unique, but lovely. I have loved working with the team at Free Spirit on bringing Oliver and Arlo to life, and I love working with my agent, Sarah. Her creative, editorial eye and her support and kindness through the ups and downs of the business have been incredible. I am grateful for all of the friends I’m making, the lessons I’m learning and the creative adventures I’m going on as I continue to read, write, create and navigate the publishing industry. 

Platform: I definitely did not, and still do not yet, have a platform in place. I am a public middle-school teacher and parent of three young children, so my writing life is squeezed into the spaces in between. As such, I’ve never been in a position to create a platform for my own visibility as a writer, but I’m working to build a platform on social media and through all those connections I’ve been making along the way. A group of authors in my agency have come together as a promotional group, and that has been a lifeline for me. I am learning so much about posting reviews, finding opportunities for school and library visits, conference planning, book festivals and social media branding alongside these other authors. Together, we share the work of building our platforms by boosting one another, celebrating each other’s book birthdays and supporting social media posts and industry milestones. Writing and self-promotion can feel really isolating, but I’ve found that there are many writers who are seeking support and connection through all steps of the process. Having others to lean on and learn from has really helped me find my footing in all aspects of writing and publishing, from drafting to revising to negotiating to celebrating to marketing and promoting!

Advice for writers: As a bit of a perfectionist with classic English teacher habits of constantly looking for things to fix and tweak, I can get stuck in a drafting cycle. One of my best friends and critique partners offered up such a valuable piece of advice that I play it on repeat in my brain every time I find myself getting stuck in a drafting spiral … Writing a first draft is like pouring sand into a sandbox. You just have to get it done so that you can make it pretty later. Remembering that revising is where so much of the beauty happens releases me of the pressure to be perfect on the first go-round and motivates me to just get it done. 

Next up: While I am still working on picture book manuscripts and we are on sub with some exciting projects, I am very busy trying to take my own advice and finish the first draft of a middle-grade novel that I’ve been working on. Can’t report any specifics, but am hopeful to have a spirited manuscript to share with the world soon! 

Website: SayuriStabrowski.com

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(Forgiveness as Narrative Risk in Memoir.)

For most of my career, writing meant documenting results in a way that could be tested, repeated, and trusted. It was structured, precise, and intentionally restrained.

When I began writing my memoir, Harvesting Hope, I assumed the challenge would be emotional—revisiting difficult memories, translating experience into language, deciding what to share. What I did not expect was how much my scientific training would shape the way I approached the page or how much I would have to unlearn.

In science, the goal is completeness. You include all relevant data, account for every variable, and build a comprehensive case. In memoir, that instinct can work against you. Not every detail belongs on the page. Not every experience needs to be explained. The goal is not to document everything that happened. The goal is to reveal what matters.

Learning that distinction was one of the most important shifts in my writing process.

I found myself asking the same questions I used to ask in the lab but applying them differently. What is the signal here? What is noise? What does the reader actually need to understand this moment? What am I including because it is essential, and what am I including because I am afraid of being misunderstood?

In science, you defend against omission because omission can distort results.

In writing, you defend against excess because excess can dilute meaning. That tension forced me to become more intentional.

I grew up in rural Rwanda, in an environment where survival required focus. You learned quickly what mattered and what did not. When I later came to the United States, I entered a culture where language often prioritized efficiency over depth. People asked, “How are you?” as a greeting, not an invitation. The expected answer was simple: “I’m good.” For a long time, I learned to compress my experiences into that single phrase.

Writing required me to expand it.

But expansion does not mean saying everything. It means saying the right things with enough clarity that the reader can feel their weight. That is where scientific discipline became unexpectedly valuable. In both science and writing, precision matters. The difference is what you are trying to make precise.

In science, you are clarifying external phenomena. In memoir, you are clarifying internal truth. Both require honesty.

One of the most difficult habits to break was my instinct to over-explain. In my professional work, clarity often comes from adding context—defining goals, outlining potential mechanisms, anticipating questions. In memoir, too much explanation can distance the reader. It can feel like interpretation instead of experience. I had to learn to trust the moment, present a scene without immediately analyzing it, and allow deliberate pause to carry a more provocative meaning. That does not mean abandoning discipline. It means applying it differently. Instead of asking, “Have I explained this completely?” I began asking, “Have I shown this clearly?” Quite a distinction!

Another lesson science taught me is the importance of confronting inconvenient data. In research, you cannot ignore results that contradict your hypothesis. You investigate them, adjust, and most certainly refine your understanding. Writing requires the same integrity. It is easy to shape a story that presents you in a consistent, flattering light. It is much harder to include the moments that complicate that narrative including uncertainty, doubt, and inevitably decisions that did not lead where you expected. Those details often carry the most truth.

As I wrote, I had to resist the urge to smooth over complexity. My journey from Rwanda to the United States, from survival to science could easily be told as a straightforward progression. It was not. It was layered, uneven, and shaped by factors beyond my control. Honoring that reality required restraint and courage on steroids, I now see.

Writers often talk about “finding your voice.” For me, voice became clearer as I removed what was unnecessary. It was not something I invented; it was something I uncovered by stripping away assumptions—about what the story should sound like, what readers might expect, what I thought I needed to prove.

Scientific training reinforced that process. In both fields, clarity comes from eliminating distortion. In science, distortion comes from bias, poor design, or incomplete data. In writing, distortion comes from performance. When you write to impress, to justify, or to control perception, the work loses its grounding. When you write to understand, the work becomes more stable.

Another unexpected overlap between science and memoir is responsibility. In my field, the work I contribute can affect how therapies are developed and how patients are treated. Writing about real people, real places, and lived experience carries a different kind of responsibility, but it is no less important. The goal is not to expose everything, but to represent what you include with integrity, ensuring that what is on the page is both accurate and fair to the people involved, integrity, and feeling of the experience.

Science taught me how to ask questions. Amazingly, writing taught me which ones matter.

For writers navigating their own memoirs, especially those drawn from complex or layered experiences, a few principles helped me maintain that precision.

1. Separate signal from noise. In research, not every data point is equally meaningful. The same is true in memoir. Identify the moments that changed your direction, your understanding, or your identity, and build around those. If a detail does not deepen character, advance insight, or clarify stakes, it may be noise. Removing it strengthens the signal.
2. Show before you explain. My instinct as a scientist was to interpret quickly—to summarize what an experience meant. Readers connect first with lived moments, however. Instead of explaining that something was difficult, I learned to place the reader inside a specific scene and let the meaning emerge. Precision often comes from concrete detail, not analysis.
3. Resist the urge to include everything. Completeness is valuable in science, but in memoir it can dilute impact. Choose representative moments rather than exhaustive chronology. Trust that a well-chosen scene can stand for a broader experience. Precision is often an act of selection.
4. Interrogate your assumptions. In science, unexpected results force you to reconsider your hypothesis. In memoir, moments that complicate your narrative often contain the most truth. If something in your story feels uncomfortable or contradictory, explore it. Those tensions create depth and authenticity.
5. Revise for clarity, not decoration. Precision is not about elaborate language. It is about using the simplest words that accurately convey the experience. During revision, I asked myself whether each sentence clarified the story or distracted from it. Removing unnecessary phrasing often made the writing stronger.

Writing this way did not make the process easier, but it made it more honest. Scientific training taught me to value accuracy, to question assumptions, and to refine conclusions. Applying those principles to memoir helped me tell a story that feels both personal and grounded. Precision, I learned, is ultimately a scientific virtue and a welcome narrative one.

Check out Angelique Khalifa’s Harvesting Hope here:

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(6 Tips for Writing a Satisfying Short Story Ending.)

I think writing platonic love isn’t so much about pointing out how it’s different from romance, because in many ways they can be similar. Two people, two souls caring for each other, is love. In some cases, it takes a romantic shape. In others, it takes a platonic one. Sometimes it blurs the line between the two, like in queerplatonic relationships (QPRs). But no matter what, platonic love is not a consolation prize; it is a whole damn treasure. It’s something I kept in mind when developing the different relationships between the characters in Shapes of Love. I wanted to write a love story that wasn’t a romance.

So much of our lives is built around the belief that being in a romantic relationship and finding the one is the only way to be truly known and cared for. In movies, the credits don’t roll until the main couple gets their happy ending and rides off into the sunset. If they don’t, it feels bittersweet, unresolved, because the protagonist ends up ‘alone.’

Singleness is perceived as a temporary state; the trenches of a war you have to claw your way out of if you don’t want to get left behind in life. As we grow older, we’re told that deep connections, real intimacy, is reserved for romantic relationships, like they’re the only salvation to loneliness. Dating can feel like a race, an endless game of musical chairs. Hurry up, lest someone claims your spot and you can’t play anymore. There was a time when I thought I had to catch up, play the game too, because of this unspoken rule we’re conditioned to live by: that milestones are achieved in tandem. It bleeds into everything: If you want to come home to someone, afford a house, have a travel companion, start a family, you “must” have a romantic partner, whether you want one or not.

The journey of my main character, Sasha, mirrors some of my experiences as a person on the aromantic and asexual spectrums. She’s not scared of being single, but she’s scared of future loneliness. She feels like her love will never be enough to make someone stay, regardless of how much of it she holds or has to give, unless it takes a romantic shape. She is willing to destroy herself to fit into the idea people have of her, because coming out might alienate her from her peers and force her to come to terms with the prospect of never being someone’s favorite person. As if, by accepting herself, a lawyer was going to puff into existence, hand her a contract, and ask her: Do you consent to being lonely for the rest of your life? By claiming this label, you agree to solitude!

Sometimes we talk about platonic love while simultaneously comparing it to romantic love, like how it doesn’t play games or hold certain expectations, but we are still defining it by likening it to romance, instead of letting it be its own thing. Similarly, being aromantic or asexual is usually seen as an ‘absence.’ And absence of what? Love? Aroace people have so much love to give; it just happens to take on a different shape from romantic love. And if it does, it’s rarely or under specific circumstances. I find it dumb, how humans like to think in binary terms: Either you love romantically or you haven’t loved at all. But we’re missing out on so much beauty by sticking to a predetermined idea of what life and love should look like.

One time I was talking to a friend who was moving in with her romantic partner. She described it as bittersweet, since she didn’t want to leave her friends and wished she could still live with them as well as her partner. I was confused in a way, because hey! You can! Living in a big house or the same building with the people who matter to you the most sounded like an absolute dream. Why isn’t this more common? To choose family, safety, and community with and beyond your partner. All we need is love, yes. But romance isn’t all the love we need.

It will come as no surprise to anyone at this point that my favorite trope is found family. No matter what type of bond these characters share, they still choose to belong with each other. So, my only advice to someone who wants to write stories with different types of love is to let your characters get to know each other as people. I try to ask myself: Do they like spending time with each other? And if I’m writing romance, would these people hang out if they weren’t in love? Would they be friends? I let them choose each other, in whatever ways feel natural to them.

And, to the person reading this, I hope you can choose yourself too. You have free will, you can write your own story, and you can shape what love and life mean to you. You’re so much more than what people tell you you should be. I am the person I am today thanks to the love I’ve given and received so far, the experiences and the people who’ve become pieces of the soul I get to shape thanks to them.

Check out L.V. Peñalba’s Shapes of Love here:

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