Category: Writing & Editing
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Work out how long your book will take: a simple drafting calculator, times by daily word count, example schedules and the realistic time after the first draft.
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What plot structure is, seven story structures compared in one table, where turning points fall in a novel, romance and thriller examples, and a free template.
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An author-side guide to ghostwriting: realistic costs by book type, what the contract must say about copyright, credit and AI, and how to vet a writer.
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60 character development questions grouped by purpose, from wounds and false beliefs to voice and romance leads, plus a copy-ready character worksheet.
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Word counts and page counts for novels by genre, plus how length changes your paperback print cost, royalty and Kindle Unlimited reads.
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Standard book manuscript format explained: fonts, spacing, margins, headers and scene breaks, plus how to turn a submission draft into a self-publishing file.
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40 love tropes for romance authors, with the promise each makes, the beats that must land, smart pairings, and how to signal tropes in blurbs and keywords.
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How to start a story: what the first line, first page and first chapter must do, the story elements to set up, genre examples and a revision checklist.
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How to write dialogue in a novel: what it is for, formatting rules, US vs UK punctuation side by side, and before-and-after romance and thriller rewrites.
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When to use “said”, when an action beat works better and how to punctuate dialogue tags in US and UK style, with a short tag list and genre edits.
