Writing well is a skill that improves with practice—and with the right techniques.
Whatever you write—emails, texts, reports, letters, proposals, instructions, social posts, resumes, applications, reviews, presentations, articles, short stories, fiction or nonfiction books, and countless other messages meant to inform, persuade, explain, or connect—I have a writing guide for you.
Here you’ll find practical advice drawn from more than six decades of professional writing experience. These articles cover writing, editing, productivity, freelance writing, and the business of earning from your words.
Good writing is usually rewritten writing. Learn a practical step-by-step method for improving structure, clarity, sentences, accuracy, and proofreading without editing your work to death.
Read: How to Edit Your Own Writing →
Writing faster is not about rushing. Learn how to improve your writing speed by planning better, separating drafting from editing, reducing distractions, and eliminating wasted effort without lowering the quality of your work.
Read: How to Write Faster Without Sacrificing Quality →
Freelance writing is more than getting paid to write. Learn how to choose a specialty, create useful samples, find prospective clients, price your work, handle assignments professionally, and build repeat business one project at a time.
Read: How to Start Freelance Writing →
A successful novel usually begins before the first chapter is written. Learn how to shape the plot, develop primary and secondary characters, build believable settings and backstory, choose point of view, map key scenes, and plan an ending that feels earned.
Read: How to Plan Your Novel →
Artificial intelligence can help writers research, brainstorm, outline, revise, and solve problems—but it cannot replace a writer’s judgment or voice. Learn how fiction and nonfiction writers can use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, and other AI tools productively and responsibly.
Read: How Working Writers Use AI →
Clear writing helps readers understand your meaning without unnecessary effort. Learn practical techniques for organizing ideas, choosing precise words, controlling sentences, using examples, writing effective dialogue, and editing both fiction and nonfiction for clarity.
A strong opening gives readers a reason to keep going. Learn how to begin fiction and nonfiction with clear direction, useful tension, specific detail, and a promise that the rest of the piece can fulfill.
Read: How to Write a Strong Opening →
Believable characters want things, make mistakes, carry contradictions, and change under pressure. Learn how to build convincing protagonists, antagonists, and secondary characters through motivation, backstory, relationships, dialogue, conflict, and meaningful choices.
Read: How to Create Believable Characters →
Writer’s block is rarely one problem. It may come from weak planning, perfectionism, distraction, fatigue, missing information, or simply not knowing what should happen next. Learn practical ways for fiction and nonfiction writers to diagnose what is stopping them and get back to productive work.
Read: How to Overcome Writer’s Block →
Good instructional nonfiction starts with a clear reader problem and ends with a useful result. Learn how to research the task, organize the solution, explain steps clearly, anticipate trouble, use examples, and edit how-to articles, books, and YouTube scripts for accuracy and usability.
Good dialogue sounds natural without copying all the repetition and clutter of real conversation. Learn how to give each speaker a purpose, create distinctive voices, use subtext and conflict, handle dialogue tags, and write believable conversations for fiction and narrative nonfiction.
Read: How to Write Dialogue That Sounds Natural →
A memoir is more than a record of what happened. Learn how to choose a meaningful story, organize memories, build scenes, research your own past, use dialogue carefully, portray other people fairly, and shape personal experience into a readable narrative.