18 Must-Read Posts on Writing Craft, Story Structure, & Character Development

There’s no shortage of writing craft tips on the web. I should know—during my tenure as Writer’s Atelier’s administrative assistant, I wrote a lot of them!

Something you’ll realize quickly if you get to know me is that, while I love to write, story structure is my one true obsession. I live to craft puzzle pieces and drop them into place in the most satisfying way. That’s why this round-up of my WA blog posts will be the longest in this multi-part series—it’s hard for me not to talk about it!

So have no fear—these won’t be the last posts I write on this subject. I’ll continue to share my insights and epiphanies about writing and stories with you via this blog and my newsletter. But for now, let’s dive into the archives.

(Speaking of archives, if you want to see the other parts of the series, you can find them here!)

Character Deep Dive

4 Steps to a Can’t-Miss Character Arc

Read this if you’re brand new to the concept of character arcs, and the idea of learning about them, creating them, and weaving them into your plot makes your head spin. (Been there!) This blog post will break it all down.

I’m really proud of this one, and I still giggle at my use of Shrek’s character arc as the example.

7 Things You Need to Know About Your Main Character

Read this if the way you create characters involves bloated docs, spreadsheets, or binders with way more information than you’ll ever need while drafting. Alternatively, if you’re a first-time novelist, this is a great starting point for learning how to craft a protagonist.

How to Make Your Characters Sound More Like Themselves

Read this if your critique group (or your instinct) is telling you that your characters’ dialogue sounds too similar to each other—or too much like you. It’s a common problem, but this blog post definitely has a few tricks you haven’t tried yet!

How to Name Characters Without Losing Your Mind

Read this if you begin every project with too many minutes spent squinting at your first sentence, mumbling, “I don’t think that’s really your name…” Whether you hate naming characters or love the naming process way too much (like me!), these five tips will help you replace all those instances of “[name??]” in your draft.

You might be wondering what this blog post is doing in a round-up of writing craft tips, but consider this: your character’s name—how they got it in the story, what it means, how it sounds—can affect not only how other characters treat them, but how your reader views them. What we name people, places, and things matters.

How to Start a Story

3 Questions to Ask Before Starting Your Next Story

Read this if you’ve already done most of the heavy lifting—the characters are crafted, the world is built, the plot is, um, plotted—and now all you need is permission to begin. If you can answer these three questions confidently, congratulations, you’re ready!

3 Ways to Test a Story Idea Before Committing

Read this if you’re staring at multiple options for your next WIP and you need to narrow it down. This’ll also be helpful if you’ve already started more than one, and now you need to pick a favorite because life has gotten crazy. (That latter situation is where I’m at right now, and I’m definitely going to be exploring Option 3 as soon as this post is published!)

How to Write a Story When All You Have is a Few Scenes

Read this if you’re the kind of writer who’s hit with inspiration in the form of crystal-clear interactions, bombshell discoveries, and rattled reactions. And then you realize you have to stitch them together, and you’re filled with dread.

How to Write a Story When All You Have is the Setting

Read this if you can imagine a sweeping world with complex magic, systems of government, and enough lore to fill multiple textbooks, but struggle with how to zoom in on the map to find the stories. This post gives different writing craft tips for character-driven and plot-driven writers, so no matter which way you lean, you’ll get something out of this one.

How to Write a Story When All You Have is the Title

Read this if fate has dealt you its cruellest hand: a simmering title and potentially a book cover design and zero idea for a story to go behind it. This blog post gives you a systematic approach to breaking down a short string of words to find hidden, potential meanings.

On the other hand, if you’re struggling with a title, you’ll want to read this blog post instead!

Story Structure and Planning

3 Ideas for Scenes That Work in Every Story

Read this if you need ideas for scenes to fix the too-quick pacing of your story, or if you need to provide a backdrop for character development and can’t think of an organic way to sneak it into your draft.

A little fun fact for you: this continues to be one of the most popular posts I’ve pinned on Pinterest!

A Story Plan For Every Writer (Even Pantsers): Review of Story Planner

Read this if you’re a pantser who wants to dip their toe into outlining a story, or if you have a feeling that the way you’re plotting stories now is not actually the best way for your brain.

Actually, if you’ve never heard of Story Planner, this is a must-read. Not to “spoil” the post, but Story Planner is a site that houses dozens of templates for giving shape to a novel, novella, screenplay, and so on. It’s very neat, and you should go explore it.

How to Use the MICE Quotient to Determine the Length of Your Project

Read this if you can’t tell whether the story idea that just popped into your head is destined to be an epic saga, a novelette, or something in between. It’s not a perfect formula—I explain why in the blog post—but it forces you to count the trees to help determine the size of the forest you’re working with.

The Beginner’s Guide to Deconstructing Your Book and Discovering Its Tropes

Read this if your book is done or one round of revision away from being done, and you have no idea how you’re going to market that sucker. This is one of those writing craft tips that you may not organically realize you need until months after your release date. Don’t get caught not knowing how to talk about your book or who to talk to about your book!

Writing Process & Revision

12+ Fiction Mediums to Write Besides the Novel

Read this if the you secretly believe you need to be working on The Great American Novel™ in order to consider yourself a writer. Not true! Fiction comes in many, many other forms, and you just might find that the most enjoyable one to you isn’t a book, but a script, or a serial, or something more experimental. (For example, writing solo RPGs has been a great brain break from my novels!)

How Do You Learn Your Writing Process? Write Short Stories

Read this if you’ve started and stopped a dozen novels and don’t understand why you never finish them.

This is another post of mine that’s beloved over on Pinterest. Make sure you follow me on Pinterest to keep my resources easily accessible and always at your fingertips.

Writing Tip: For Easier Revising, Leave More Comments

Read this if you’re in the middle of drafting, or you’re about to start your first draft. I’m convinced leaving comments is the way to make revising less painful.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I have these revelations in the middle of writing and think, I’ll definitely remember that minute detail I want to add four chapters back. I’m having too much fun right now, so I can’t stop to jot anything down. But that’s doing the work a disservice in the long run. It is absolutely worth it to stop and make those notes because no one can remember thirty different details to be scattered throughout a whole book. If you don’t believe me, read the blog post.

Still feeling stuck, even after diving into these writing craft tips?

You’re not alone—and you don’t have to stay that way. If you’re overwhelmed, unsure what’s missing, or just tired of going in circles, let’s talk it out.

I offer two ways to help you move forward:

Prefer something self-paced? You’ll love The Definitive Prerequisite to Understanding Story Structure—a mini-course built for new and struggling writers who crave actually-actionable steps for learning how to write with clarity and confidence.