I gave myself full permission to stop writing. I wasn’t going to write any more that night and I wasn’t going to write any more the next day

That’s why, to me, the worst Jeffery Eugenides book will always be remarkably better than the best Dan Brown book.

There are less-discussed and less-understood Time factors, such as the past perfect verb tense or the order of phrases and clauses.

When you use a verb tense without fully understanding it, you’re essentially sticking your reader into the Delorean and stepping on the gas.

Many writers add more words in an effort to explain or justify. The more effective solution is to go back to fix. More is not always better.

The most misused and dangerous use of Flashback is – what I have come to call – the Immediate Flashback or interrupting backstory.

Character's unique abilities put them in strange places, but if you include too many details about abilities, you bore the reader.

The ratio is simple: the amount of words used to show the action is inversely proportional to the time that action requires.

Don’t be fooled – characters will not suddenly become real people, capable of reaching out from your computer to type their own story.

You must trust your skill, of course. But more than anything, trust your readers. They’re a lot smarter than you might think.

You've finished! Hooray! Now, how do you make sense of the feedback your beta readers give?