Fifty kid-friendly writing prompts—adventure, silly, mystery, and more—plus simple tips to help young writers get past the blank page.
50 Creative Writing Prompts for Kids (That Actually Spark Ideas) Read More »
There is a particular kind of novel that stops being a story and turns into a sermon with characters. You can feel the moment it happens — the dialogue goes stiff, somebody starts saying things no human says out loud, and the book quietly stops trusting you. I write faith-informed fiction, and avoiding that trap
Writing Faith Without Preaching Read More »
Ask a room of kids to “write about your weekend” and watch a certain number of them go completely still. Pencil down. Eyes on the desk. That stillness isn’t laziness. It’s the blank page doing what blank pages do best: scaring people. I make writing-prompt resources for teachers and parents, and the single most common
How to Get a Reluctant Writer to Write the First Sentence Read More »
Children are the toughest dialogue critics alive. They may not tell you your kid character sounds fake. But, they may just quietly decide the book is “for babies” and never pick it up again. I learned a lot about this writing a book narrated by a seven-year-old. Here is what actually makes a young character
Writing Dialogue a Kid Will Actually Believe Read More »
In a cozy mystery, the setting isn’t just scenery. It’s more like one of the characters and it’s usually the nosiest one in the book. I’ve been working on a series called Wiregrass Roots, set in a small South Alabama town, and the longer I work on it the more convinced I am that the
Writing a Town That Feels Like a Person Read More »
Writing a mystery is hard. Writing one for a reader who’s never read a mystery, and handing the whole thing to a six-year-old narrator, turns out to be a different sport entirely. That’s the job The Boll Weevil Bandit handed me. Maisie Jo is in the first grade, and she has decided that she’s going
How Do You Write a Detective Who’s Seven? Read More »
Every writer I know has heard “show, don’t tell” approximately four million times. We hear it from professors, from critique partners, from agents at conferences, from the back covers of craft books, from blog posts, and writers’ Facebook groups. But how many times do you sit down to draft a scene, and then do it
Stop Telling Me That!! (or Writing Realistic Characters That Step Out of The Page) Read More »
There’s a particular kind of silence that only exists in a small town. It isn’t the empty hush of the desert or the lonely quiet of a city apartment at three in the morning. It’s heavier than that. Expectant. It’s the quiet of a hundred eyes watching from behind lace curtains, and a hundred
The Heart of the Cozy Mystery Read More »
