How Writing a Novel is Like Baking a Cake How Writing a Novel is Like Baking a Cake By Megan Cutler | April 14, 2025 | Comments 0 Comment Everything is cake nowadays right? Well writing a novel is a lot like making a layer cake. I’ve used a lot of metaphors to talk about writing. The one that crops up most often is that writing and publishing is a lot like a mountain. If you look at the whole thing from the start, … Read More Read More
Know the Colossal Danger Caused by Missing your Story’s Middle Know the Colossal Danger Caused by Missing your Story’s Middle By Megan Cutler | March 25, 2024 | Comments 0 Comment I talk about writing a lot. Probably because it’s what I devote the majority of my time to. Writing novels is my full-time gig after all. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because stories and how we tell them have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, … Read More Read More
Why it’s Important for Reoccurring Characters to Inhabit your World Why it’s Important for Reoccurring Characters to Inhabit your World By Megan Cutler | February 5, 2024 | Comments 0 Comment Writing any story involves a complex balancing act between various different elements. Plot and pacing are two of the bigger ones, so they receive a lot of conversation. But lots of things contribute to the overall quality of the composition. Atmosphere is also important, and usually balanced according to individual scenes. Characters are another of … Read More Read More
My Top Writing Life Hack: Draft Cycling My Top Writing Life Hack: Draft Cycling By Megan Cutler | July 17, 2023 | Comments 1 comment Writing is a highly personalized endeavor. The process that works for one writer might not work for another. That’s why it’s so important to test widely and discover what works best for you. Some people like to spend months creating a detailed plan before they write a single word of first draft. Others like to … Read More Read More
4 Uncomfortable Truths All Writers Must Eventually Accept 4 Uncomfortable Truths All Writers Must Eventually Accept By Megan Cutler | March 6, 2023 | Comments 0 Comment If there’s one thing writers lament it’s people not understanding that writing is hard work. Some people seem to have the impression that writers spend the majority of their day sitting by the pool sipping martinis and maybe an hour on weekends making the magic happen. And since many writers also work day jobs, I … Read More Read More
Freebie Mondays: The Evolution of Symphony of the Stars Freebie Mondays: The Evolution of Symphony of the Stars By Megan Cutler | April 25, 2022 | Comments 0 Comment I’ve been taking a look at the various iterations of my published novels to see how they change between drafts. I started by looking at Dreamers Do Lie which, because I took a significant break in between the first and second drafts, has a few less versions to look at. The Celestial Serenade, on the … Read More Read More
Freebie Mondays: Symphony of the Stars Deleted Scenes Freebie Mondays: Symphony of the Stars Deleted Scenes By Megan Cutler | February 28, 2022 | Comments 0 Comment A few weeks ago I shared a look at some older drafts of Dreamers Do Lie. It’s interesting to see just how much a story changes during the writing process. One thing I hear writers talk about a lot is deleted content. I keep separate draft files for all of my manuscripts in case I … Read More Read More
Freebie Mondays: the Phases of Dreamers Do Lie Freebie Mondays: the Phases of Dreamers Do Lie By Megan Cutler | January 31, 2022 | Comments 3 comments I decided to do something interesting (and a tiny bit dangerous). I opened an old draft of one of my novels and used Word’s comparison feature to examine how much it changed. For those that aren’t familiar with this particular feature, it essentially highlights in red every change made between the different versions of the … Read More Read More
How to Perfect Your Novel’s Pacing – A Powerful Guide How to Perfect Your Novel’s Pacing – A Powerful Guide By Megan Cutler | January 24, 2022 | Comments 2 comments Pacing is one of the most discussed story structure elements. Everyone knows about it. (We learn about it in high school English class along with tone and atmosphere.) But even if we didn’t study it, it’s an intrinsic piece of storytelling we subconsciously recognize. How many times have you walked out of a movie and … Read More Read More
The Challenges of Writing Strong Female Characters The Challenges of Writing Strong Female Characters By Megan Cutler | November 8, 2021 | Comments 0 Comment People have been talking about strong female characters for a long time. It’s become something of a buzzword since I started reading as a teenager. But what does it mean? In the beginning, I believe the idea of a strong female character was any woman who wasn’t a damsel in distress, a character granted their … Read More Read More