Push Your Imagination

Unforeseen Endings & Other Gifts of a Flexible Novel Outline

Daniel Schwabauer Outlines aren’t the only way to bring shape to a story. A bad outline will drive you compulsively in the wrong direction. Instead of giving advice, it will give commands. It will tell you to write what it summarizes, regardless of how the story has changed in your mind during the telling. “I am the story,” a bad outline will say. And if you listen to it, your story will be bad too.
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How One Smart Scene Can Pull the Weight of Many

By Rachel Garner, Staff Writer For six years, I couldn’t figure out how to write an opening scene for my book. It’s a running joke among my friends that I’m an obsessive editor—I’ve spent nearly ten years now on the book itself—but my struggles with chapter 1 were especially ridiculous.
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A Girl and Her Goggles: Tips for Writing Steampunk

By Sarah Noé, Guest Contributor It might sound like I had all the pieces in place, all the gears turning, for a happy steampunk writing career. However, the sub-genre still held some surprises for me—surprises I want to impart to you. I hope by sharing them that steampunk will appear more accessible if you, too, have an interest in writing it.
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