Master List of Answers to Most Asked-For Writing Topics on This Site

You who read this site and participate in its discussions on all the writing topics are an endless source of inspiration to me. This is true in many ways, but most literally in that when you ask deeply insightful questions, you often give me great ideas for posts about writing topics!

A few months ago, I asked you to tell me what kind of posts you’d like me to write in the future. Thank you for all the great ideas! I have filled out the year’s post roster thanks to your suggestions. I also had to smile at Lori’s comment that:

I really can’t think of anything you haven’t already covered.

There’s much I haven’t yet been able to cover. However, in the last 17 years and nearly 1,700 posts (and podcasts and videos—not to mention books and courses), there is also a great deal of comprehensive info already available on writing topics of all sorts.

Several years ago, I created the page you’re now visiting as a resource in response to the many questions I received on topics I’d already covered. This master list of writing topics responds to some of those queries in an easy-to-scan list with links to articles I’ve already published.

This year, I’m updating the resource in response to some of the questions you posed back in October. This page contains still all the links from the previous posting. However, if you asked a new question or suggested a new post idea back in October, then I have responded in one of the following ways:

• By adding your suggestion to the list for discussion in a future post this year.
• By adding it below with links to pertinent posts, marked in red so you can easily recognize what’s new.
• By retaining similiar questions asked by someone else previously, with pertinent resources below.

Other Ways to Find the Writing Topics You’re Looking For

For those who are unaware, the site is very searchable. If you’re looking for a particular topic, just use the search bar. If you’re on a computer, this will show up at the top of the right-hand toolbar (just above my headshot).

If you’re on a mobile device, you’ll need to scroll down, almost all the way to the bottom (again, it will be just above my headshot).

You can also access articles by category (such as Characters, Dialogue, POV, etc.), using the drop-down menu entitled Categories, which you can find toward the bottom of the right-hand column (on a computer) or at the bottom of your screen (on a mobile device).

You can also check out “The Ultimate Glossary of Writing Terms,” an extensive list that includes both definitions and links to relative articles.

>>See this post for even more of the site’s resources that you may not know about.

Now, without further ado, here are some of your questions and the posts that may help you answer them. Again, the most recent additions to this resource, in response to your latest questions, are noted in red both in the TOC and in the sections below.

Table of Contents

Returning to Writing After a Long Break

debraji: I don’t know if you’ve written about this before—but how do you start again after a long stretch away from writing? When your “writing muscles” are out of shape and your confidence is at a low, and you’re casting about for a story worth telling?

Marketing

Jonathan R Allen: How you promote your blog, books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. Tells us what works for you!

Genres

Louis Schlesinger: Would you please consider a series on the art of writing stories of different genres—action, mystery, thriller, horror, romance, war, westerns, etc?

Organizing Edits

Tiffany Taylor: How to map out a bonafide plan to address and/or incorporate the suggestions, now that I’ve received feedback from multiple editors. I’m overwhelmed with how to proceed and need some kind of action plan!

Writer’s Block

YCgirly: What can you do to get rid of writer’s block?

Reclaiming Joy in Writing

John Mennella: Would you consider writing a blog post about writing fiction primarily for the experience of personal pleasure and the joy of creating art? I honestly believe that these are sufficient reasons for someone to write fiction. I often feel that too many writing “experts” are overly focused on the commercial aspect of fiction writing and that they’ve lost track of its more important aspects, namely that it is an art form and has great therapeutic potential.

Plot Points of Archetypal Character Arcs

NagiaV: I’m eager to deepen my understanding of Story Plot Points, particularly in relation to the archetypal arcs, with a focus on the 6 Positive Archetypal Character Arcs. I would love to learn more about how the Midpoint typically appears in the Maiden, the Hero, the Queen Arc, etc.

Each post in the following series features a beat-by-beat look at the structure of each archetypal arc:

Killing Your Darlings When Editing

Steve: How to kill your darlings effectively. After writing a scene draft, I’ll often have a nagging feeling that part of it is just not good, too awkward, too melodramatic, too out of character for my character. I know I need to change it, edit it, something. But for some reason I’ll often let it ride. Maybe I’m concerned about losing something else in the scene that I liked. Maybe I’m second guessing unnecessarily. Maybe I’m looking for something more objective to tell my subjective self what to do.

Writing a Series

Lilo: I would really love to read about how to outline and structure a series.

Description

Julien: Currently, I’m faced with the problem of writing descriptions. How to make them compelling. The most difficult for me is describing colours and feelings. I would be grateful should you share some of your experiences in that domain.

How to Write Emotional Scenes

Carine Grace: I’d love to learn more about how to make your story pluck reader’s emotions without becoming over descriptive or sappy.

Multiple Plotlines

DK: Juggling multiple protagonists, multiple themes, and multiple through-lines.

Rewriting to Adjust Word Count

Anne: I’d like to learn how to rewrite/edit a large manuscript (115,000 words) into a tight 75,000 words.

sanityisuseless: How do you lengthen your novel? (I can’t seem to break even 20K on my novel.)

Historical Research

bertram1414: I’d like to learn about historical research, tbh, but I don’t know where to look.

Self-Publishing and Self-Editing

Jason P: I’d love to see updated self-publishing info and more on self-editing.

Death Scenes

confidential writer: One thing that would be really helpful is if you wrote a post about how to write solid death scenes or scenes of a similar dramatic level without them being mellodramatic.

Action Scenes

confidential writer: Also, maybe something about how to write good action scenes (like chases, duels, etc).

Heroine’s Journey

Elisabeth: First off, I love your blog! It has taught me so much about writing. I would love to read about the Hero’s journey, and the variations between male and female journeys.

Outlining Your Novel

Joe Copeland: Right now, my biggest interest is organizing my novel project prior to writing. I have many things I like to refer back to while writing such as character lists, character biographies, major scenes, basic plot, basic backstory, etc. I’m fashioning a list of my favorite things, but I was wondering what things you like to have before starting.

Rick: I would like to know how (i.e. what process and tools you use ) you organize your thoughts/ideas when starting to write a book. Do you start from a big picture overview and then identify the individual scenes, or do you start from the beginning of the story and go forward in time or ? I assume you create an outline, but how do you incorporate character arcs, key plot points, etc. into the outline?

Steve: I would love to hear more about the beginnings of the process. Most specifically going from a very rough idea to a plot line and story structure. Then how you go from a simple plot line to one that has sub plots and interesting twists.

Pacing

Xavier Basora: Pacing. What is it and how you incorpoate it in stories.

Tools

Johne Cook: I’m curious about your tools. There was a time you were using yWriter, what writing tools are you using in 2022?

Second Act

Milin Joshi: Writing the 2nd act.

Conflict

Ardra: Please write about CONFLICT.

There seem to be two types of conflict:

• • pleasurable to read
  • hostile engagements.

For instance nice conflict includes problem solving, convincing someone, battles, mysteries, any occasion that enables the MC to display skill in an interesting way etc

Hostile engagements are unpleasant to read and leave one tired. They’re mostly centered on people being horrible to each other, aggressiveness for its own sake, internal monologue that displays envy and incompetence etc.

Insecure writers (and I realized I do this as well) tend to jump into the hardest situation possible, which is typically about people being unreasonable and aggressive. This makes for very unpleasant reading and stupid characters.

How do I internalize writing nice conflict and keep on track with it?

Theme

Amy: Can you write about how best to shape or mine ideas or theme into compelling stories

Revision

Galynn D Zitnik: I am in the middle of revising my novel and it is so easy to get lost and confused. Do you have an efficient system for revising?

Writing Funny Characters

Shelley Lea Frost: Hi Katie, thanks so much for all your wonderful advice. Your insight and the effort you put into helping others are much appreciated. Do you have any words of wisdom about writing witty characters? I love people with a sense of humour but struggle to make the jokes and repartee sound different. I only have a single small sad supply of wit and it won’t stretch enough to create characters with different voices. All my funny sounds the same. Should I continue to stalk my friends? They’re starting to look cross when I stick my phone in their faces every time someone laughs. Please give me some options. For the sake of my social life and my potential writing career.

Daydreaming

Peter Samet: I’ve realized that I don’t daydream nearly as much as I used to. I partially blame my smartphone, which prevents me from ever getting bored, but also discourages one-on-one time with my brain. How important is daydreaming for writing, and how does one make time for it when one barely has time to write either?

Novel Doubts

Riley G.: What do you do with a scene in a novel that you liked when you first wrote it, but don’t like so much when you reread it? And how do you know what to replace the scene with, or how do you know that a new idea to replace said scene is the right thing to replace it with? How do you deal with second thoughts when working on a manuscript?

Deciding Which Idea to Write

Miriam Harmon: Though, I used to have shiny object syndrome, now that I’ve gotten over it, I have more stories than I know how to write. Now I’m stuck wondering which of these stories I should focus on. Should I start with something easier or go for my best book idea, and which is my best book idea? Every time I try to narrow them down, I end up with ten or more stories that really deserve to be written, and I’m not sure how to choose which one to do right now. Any advice?

nick: I have so many ideas, how do I choose which idea to work on next? I’m just finishing up my first book, and it felt so pressing and all consuming for years, now I’m afraid I won’t feel that pressing importance again.

Betsy W.: Thank you for all that you create! How do you know when an idea is worth turning into a novel? Do you have a feeling about the general idea that tells you it’s enough for a novel? Or is there a list of questions you ask yourself about the idea to test it out? Thank you for the stories you tell and for all the ways you help writers.

Subplots

Lorraine: How do you go about layering subplots into the main story? Do you write the main story first and then add in the subplots while you edit or do you include it in the story plan? I’m currently adding in a romantic subplot into my urban fantasy book. While there were elements during the editing process, it wasn’t until I was almost at the polishing stage I realized the romantic subplot didn’t have enough meat. Hence the question.

Titles

Andrew Williams: I struggle enormously with decent titles. I can spend a year writing and editing something under a working title and still have no idea what to call it at the end. Do you have any advice on coming up with memorable, searchable titles for our writing projects?

Subtext

Murli: How to make subtext impactful?

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Many of the posts listed here are comprehensive. A few are not, and I may return to these topics in more depth in the future. For now, thanks for the inspiration, and I hope you find some of the answers you were hoping for. If not, stay tuned!

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Are there any more writing topics that you’d like me to cover in the future? Tell me in the comments!