Craft tips for authors: October 27, 2026

The publishing experts we follow have plenty of craft advice to offer. 

Here are the ones that we thought were can't-miss for our authors:

• Crafting nuanced emotional states: Author Kim Bullock unpacks the real-life events of her late summer to illustrate how a character's emotional state should be treated as a complex stew, not as a simple snapshot (Writer Unboxed). 

• Four tips for writing characters that feel resonant: Author Melanie Faith shares writing strategies that she has found result in characters that readers can easily imagine being real (Women Writers, Women's Books).

• The power of place: Author Barbara O'Neal reflects on how setting influences the writer, the characters, and even the plot, then provides writing exercises to help you practice deepening the sense of place in your work (Writer Unboxed).

• Adding theme to your story without being preachy: Becca Puglisi provides strategies for quietly conveying your theme through the full cast of characters, symbolism and imagery, and other seemingly unrelated elements of the story (Writers Helping Writers). 

• Tips for writing subplots that strengthen your main plot: K.M. Weiland explains the key types of plots and subplots, to help differentiate them in your mind, then shares her favorite techniques for weaving them seamlessly into your main story (Helping Writers Become Authors).