Q : Why is the first line so important?
A : Agents and acquiring editors will quit reading if your opening sentence doesn’t zing. Any writer seeking publication or the devoted attention of a reader browsing in a bookstore needs to craft that first sentence, revising, revising, revising, until it [...]

Stop worrying about getting published and concentrate on getting better.
That was some of the sage advice the celebrated novelist offered writers at a literary seminar last week in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
“Focus on the work itself and not on what may or may not eventually happen to it,” Robbins said. “If the work is [...]

The most productive writers I’ve known develop skills and techniques that carry them through episodes of writer’s block, procrastination, and loss of focus. Writing is an art, a craft and a discipline. It takes a lot of energy and creativity to work all alone for the most part, to overcome bumps in the road and [...]

What’s it like for a writer to work at the elbow of legendary filmmaker George Lucas?
For the answer, I turned to my son Jonathan, an executive editor and writer at LucasBooks.
He’s worked closely with the boss and other staff for the past seven years to write and produce dozens of titles related to the Star [...]

Q : I have so much material for my memoir. How do I sort out what to include and what to leave out?
A : This is the key problem a writer faces when constructing a non-fiction memoir. Here are six specific steps to consider when making your [...]

Editors pray for the perfect book title: a tight high-concept combination of words that crystallizes the content and intention of the work. A title so scintillating and irresistible that millions of readers want to run out and buy this book immediately.
Eureka! It happens.
Think of Chicken Soup for the Soul, or Men are from [...]

Q:My writers group thinks I need to strengthen the narrative arc in my novel. How can I do that?
A:The “narrative arc” is a fancy way of saying that every story needs to have a beginning, middle, and end. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, you need an act one, act two, act three.
Take for [...]

I’m among the publishing veterans who admired and benefited from the creativity and courage of Clay Felker, who died this week at the age of 82.
This celebrated and deeply influential editor made a big difference at the start of my own career when he assigned his young star reporter Tom Wolfe to write what turned [...]

Writers sometimes suffer bouts of major paralysis. They want to write, are desperate to get down something great, but it’s just not coming easily, in fact not at all.
No one had a worse case of writer’s block than Hunter S. Thompson. After the presidential election of November, 1972, his contractual deadline for Fear and Loathing [...]

A developmental editor can help a writer find ways to add greater depth and stronger identity to characters in a story.
One approach combines two characters into one more complex and diverse individual, or instead, may split apart one character [...]

Writers I work with occasionally forget about dialogue entirely, summarizing the action in a stilted “told to” style, while others write quote after quote, in a voice that sounds all the same, often coincidentally like the author’s own.
I have a few tips for all such folks:

Read out loud and listen carefully. Could you tell when [...]

I was interviewed last week for yet another book about the early days of Rolling Stone Magazine.
This marks the latest of nearly a dozen long interviews over the years as a primary source for writers on the founding and initial development of what was then a startup with grandiose ambitions, including two major histories [...]

Has there ever been a better time to read about Presidential politics or more to demand our attention every day? It’s a constant roller coaster, with minute-by-minute reports 24/7: “Hillary’s up; Obama’s down… Hillary’s down; Obama’s up… McCain is getting a free ride; McCain is putting his foot in his mouth.”
Periodicals like The New [...]

B efore you go off and waste months and even years on 400 pages that took a bad turn and went down the wrong path, first make an outline.
That’s right, make an outline!
I usually hear a lot of grumbling when I suggest this to aspiring writers.
“Are you joking? What about inspiration, free association, the liberating [...]