For writers
The Writing Guide
Four guides for writers at every stage, from the first idea to the first readers. They are about writing, not about buttons, and you can read them without an account.
Read them in order or start where you are. Each guide ends with an exercise you can do today.
From Idea to Book
A book begins long before the outline. It begins with a question you can’t stop asking.
Where story ideas come from, how to find the question at the heart of one, and how to tell whether it can carry a whole book. With a worked example, from a single image to a first page.
About 9 minutes to read
Story and Characters
Readers follow people, not plots. A plot is what happens to people who want something.
Desire, conflict and change; how plots are built and why structures are tools rather than rules; scenes, dialogue and pacing; and how to begin and end. Written for fiction, with notes on structure in nonfiction.
About 9 minutes to read
From Manuscript to Finished Book
A first draft is how you find out what the book is. Everything after it is how you make it so.
Drafting and revising, the kinds of editing and when each belongs, using early readers well, keeping a clean manuscript, and getting an e-book and a print edition ready, including what Ideoria’s files do and don’t do.
About 8 minutes to read
Finding Your First Readers
Your first readers won’t come from everywhere. They will come from somewhere in particular, one at a time.
Knowing who the book is for, saying what it is about in a few sentences, presenting yourself as an author, sharing sample chapters and early copies, and building real relationships with readers. Honest about what nobody can promise.
About 8 minutes to read