Creative planning is the act of mapping out where you are, where you want to go, and how you are going to process today’s challenges.

Writers need help building something beautiful, solid, and original—and that takes a method. The method I suggest has three concepts: Scene, Series, Theme.

As a writer, I began as a ‘pantser’. If the term isn’t familiar, its simply (and somewhat hilariously) refers to someone who writes by the seat of her pants. That’s how I do life, that’s how I started writing flash fiction and short stories, and I imagined that’s how I would write a novel. ...

I recently finished brainstorming for a new book. I had lists of ideas, pages full of "what ifs," and be...

Story has shape. We’re often told it has a two-dimensional shape — a common rise (gentle or swift) of a hill, or a scalene triangle. But I call shenanigans on that. I say utter donkeytr…

A plot planner enables you to keep the larger picture of your story in full view as you concentrate on writing individual scenes.

Author Simon K Jones demonstrates how he uses Trello with his writing projects.

An example of a beat sheet used to outline a screenplay.