How to be a #NaNo Winne...

  Are you going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year? National Novel Writing Month, if you’re not familiar with the nickname, is a huge international event where writers attempt to finish a 50,000-word novel between November 1 and 30. The rule: you can only write during the month...

Rewriting vs. Editing

  I recently took a class on rewriting that gave me deeper insights into some of the things I’m already doing, and suggestions to improve others. The first thing discussed was the definition of rewriting. How is it different from editing? Typically, a writer gets a first draft on...

Welcome to Smooth Draft

Smooth Draft can write, edit, or proofread your fiction or non-fiction. We’ll take your rough draft and smooth it out.  Whether you’re a published author, a self-published author, aspiring to have your first work published, or an academic, we have the skills and...

Speech tags speak loude...

That should probably be “more loudly,” (assuming speech tags could speak) but I’ll stick with the well-known phrase even though it’s got some grammatical issues, anthropomorphizing aside. The Basics Speech tags. We’ve all seen them, even if we didn’t...

Building a Character We...

All writers know that you need conflict and tension to drive to story forward, and to engage readers so they want to keep reading. In a thriller, writers can rely more on plot because the reader is anxious to see what happens next. In romance the reader wants to know what happens to the...

A fun and useful tool f...

I’m not sure who first told me about Write or Die, but I didn’t pay any attention to them. It took two or three other people mentioning it before I took a look at the website, and I have to say I’m very glad I did. [Time for a disclaimer: I am not associated in any way...