Posted on August 19, 2025 at 10:05 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
The publishing experts we follow have plenty of craft and creative process advice to offer.
Here are the ones that we thought were can't-miss for our authors:
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How setting shapes mystery: By now, you're surely out of the habit of thinking that setting is "just" a backdrop, but Michelle Barker makes a special point of explaining how a mystery's location limits suspects, suggests motives, provides clues, and shapes the crime (Writers Helping Writers).
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Writing better character conflicts: K.M. Weiland breaks down psychologists' five conflict management styles so that you can write more nuanced, compelling conflicts — and characters (Helping Writers Become Authors).
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Pruning the problem tree: Juliet Marillier received a challenging report on the structure of her work in progress; her strategy for processing it (and the follow-up report) is to think of an arborist's work (Writer Unboxed).
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Lessons from a search for the "secret sauce": Sharon Kurtzman diligently took advice from all sorts of writing experts, but the bottom line for her was not to look for "the" secret sauce, but rather for her own secret sauce (Writer Unboxed).
Categories: Behind the scenes