Posted on February 12, 2026 at 2:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
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:
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Small writing habits can equal big results: Elizabeth Kemp shares the parts of her daily routine that helped her produce a novel in the midst of all of her other responsibilities (Women Writers, Women's Books).
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Writing about people from different cultures: Author Manish Chauhan's advice on depicting people from a culture you're not part of is actually to think not about the differences, but the similarities (Writer's Digest).
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How to make use of incidental characters: Kathryn Craft was struck by many aspects of a novel she read recently, but in this post she focuses on the way characters that enter just a single scene affect our main characters profoundly (Writer Unboxed).
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Why your story keeps stalling: Leslie Bradford-Scott has developed a train metaphor to guide an understanding of a story that moves forward versus one that seems stuck on the tracks (Jane Friedman).
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Give your thriller the pace and tension it needs: Author Jennifer van der Kleut uses her own novel as the example for four principles of writing a thriller that readers can't put down (Writer's Digest).
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Research like an academic, write like an indie: Joanna Penn hosted Melissa Addey on her podcast to discuss striking the right balance between facts and compelling fiction (The Creative Penn)
Categories: Behind the scenes