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Holly Lisle

Author Archives: Holly Lisle

Novelist, writing-nerd, dissector of thought processes, writing course creator and site owner here, Holly Lisle has a cat that plays fetch and a whole lotta stuff on HollyLisle.com for both readers and writers.

Plot Loosely, Plot Loosely

Three Benefits of Plotting Loosely When you do, you’ll accomplish three things that will make writing something sustainable—something you’ll be able to do with joy for the rest of your life—instead of turning it into miserable drudge work that leaves you longing to do ANYTHING else. What are these three things? You’ll keep your main […]

Don’t BREED Characters!

(photo credit: André Mouraux — see * and ** below) Don’t breed characters? Really? But (you may be thinking) my story NEEDS characters! It does. Does it need 100 of them, though, all named, most with tiny roles in only one scene, all who must be tracked through your eventual edits with the fine-toothed comb […]

Write Only the Good Stuff

That seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Clearly you don’t want to write bad stuff. But I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read a post or a blog or heard a writer say, “I can hardly wait to get through this chapter so I can write the one I’m excited about.” Have you ever […]

What’s Coming For HWC Members 2018

The last few years have been focused on site development. On getting: Classrooms working Classes back in place The forum functioning Access to classes fixed The old shop replaced with a new shop The broken affiliate program replaced with a top-notch program Last year, I also worked on existing classes, doing an overhaul and update […]

New Year’s Greeting

Pay no attention to the editor hiding behind the curtain. (The one who doesn’t read her own memos.) Holly’s inaugural post for 2018 goes live next Tuesday, 9 January. We’re still on hiatus this week! 0

HWC Blog Hiatus December 21 Through January 8

The HWC Blog is taking a break over the holidays. We’ll kick off the new year with Holly’s inaugural post for 2018 on Tuesday, January 9th. Don’t miss it. 2

Be An Actor

Today we are pleased to bring you a new blog feature, Holly’s Writing Insights. Coming to you the first Tuesday of each month, these posts will be short, to-the-point bits of wisdom that you can apply immediately to your writing. Here’s today’s insight. Be an actor? That’s a WRITING TIP?! Yeah. Seriously. You have to […]

Read Fiction

All writers are readers. Not most, not some. ALL. It’s one of the few times you’ll ever hear me make an all-encompassing blanket statement. If you want to write, you have to read. If you want to write well, you have to read a lot. Not to learn voice—you have your own, and you don’t want to […]

Make Your Villain Stronger Than Your Hero

So this enormous gunslinger walks into a bar, black hat pulled down low, six-shooters drawn. He’s all muscle, he’s mean, his scars have scars, his tree-trunk legs sport bands of throwing knives, and he has whiskey on his breath and death in his eyes. He stalks up to the hero, shoves both guns against the […]

A Little Every Day is Better Than a Lot at Once

When I first imagined being a writer, I imagined writing books. For this to make sense, let me describe exactly what I mean. I’m talking about BOOKS. Hard covers, hundreds of printed pages, small typefaces, lines all close together. Have you ever done this? Imagined yourself writing a book, and when you thought about it, […]

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