by Nanci | Jun 15, 2026 | Character, Craft, Podcast
Secondary characters are often the most overlooked part of a story. Writers spend months inside their protagonist’s head and barely a moment asking who everyone else is when the protagonist isn’t in the room. The result is a story world that feels thin...
by Nanci | Jun 8, 2026 | Craft, Podcast, Structure
Most first-time novelists think in chapters — but chapters aren’t the structural units of your story. Scenes are. So what is a scene, exactly? And how is it different from a chapter? In this episode, I break down what a scene is, what it needs to do, how scenes...
by Nanci | Jun 1, 2026 | Craft, Podcast, Structure
You know your opening matters. You’ve probably rewritten it more than once. You’ve tried starting earlier, starting later, cutting the backstory, adding more tension. But something still isn’t landing and you can’t quite name why. The best...
by Nanci | May 18, 2026 | Character, Craft, Podcast, Structure
Your story feels stuck. You’ve reread the chapters, moved scenes around, added more conflict. But something still isn’t working and you can’t name what it is. There’s a layer underneath every stuck story that most writers never think to...
by Nanci | Apr 13, 2026 | Craft, Podcast
If your first draft feels like it’s wandering — like you’re generating pages but not quite writing a story — this episode is for you. After coaching and editing hundreds of first-time novelists and memoir writers, I keep seeing the same three mistakes show...
by Nanci | Mar 23, 2026 | Character, Craft, Podcast
Every writer knows the feeling. Your story is on fire, you’re excited about what’s on the page, then boom — your story dies in the middle. The excitement fades, the scenes stop feeling alive, and no matter how many times you reread or rework your outline,...
