Innovative Editing

What is an antagonist? To some writers, that’s a stupid, stupid question. Because everyone knows what an antagonist is. It’s the bad guy.

If you’re not a hard-core, experienced plotter – someone who outlines every single detail about their story before actually writing it down

When you write a strong protagonist, you have to make him, her or it realistic and relatable. That’s what we learned yesterday, going so far

If you want to know how to write a strong protagonist, here’s what you want to do… Close your eyes and think about the most compelling main

I’ll never forget the first time I watched Chicago, the movie version with Catherine Zeta Jones and Renée Zellweger. It’s about two utterly

Considering the topic of this episode, perhaps I should write another e-booklet called “How to stand your ground when people are pushy, self

Let’s recap what we've learned about characters so far this week: Tuesday – Characters come in all shapes and sizes. They can be people

I’ve admitted this before and I’ll admit it again… When it comes to creating character profiles for my novels, I’m an absolute, complete an

Despite the blog title above, we’re actually going to cover seven kinds of characters your novel could contain. It’s just that only six of t

As for today, we’re going to address the character of your fiction or nonfiction work. Not “a” character, as in the protagonist or antagonis

We already addressed three specific ways to get past writer’s block: Sucking it up Skipping ahead Sucking it up while eating yummy food....

Today, we’re starting out with the Writing Challenge right away. Great ways to get past writer’s block are best addressed in a specific orde

Editor’s Note: I first discovered Joy Eilene Givens on the Pennwriters’ Facebook group after she posted the following: Hello, Pennwriters!

Dear Genuine Writer, We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to talk about writer’s block. Do not panic. Next week, we’ll get back t

Back when I was teaching Novel Writing 101 at the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland, I got asked one specific question often

Subplots are beautiful things – or romantic, or mysterious, or thrilling, or fantastic things – when done right. We’ve already established t

Did you know that subplots can be more potent or poignant than the plots they sprout from? There's a lot to be said for writing powerful

C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe follows a schoolgirl who discovers an extraordinary wardrobe. Inside, she finds Narnia, a m

Clearly, Innovative Editing is all about genuine writers. But this begs a really good question: What is a genuine writer? It’s a question a

Yesterday’s post about plot could have been taken a little more harshly than I intended. So let me reiterate that it was meant for lazy or w