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Some people edit as they go along but from my experience, a good once over is always done. I stuck to my plot, wrapped up all loose ends, but you never know when you’ve missed something important, even for example, a repeated word that cheapens your MS. I know it’s no fun re-reading something so laboriously written and read thru on the fly but it is a must. Take it as a matter of procedure. And if you do it well, alongside a checklist, you need only do it once. Think of it as

When you write because you need to tell your story, readers will sense that feeling of ebulliance. When you try to be clever with your scene, world, and twist, readers catch you out immediately as someone manufacturing a story for them to read. I was guilty of this for some time before I wrote to please myself. Of course, do not write too far from a genre or niche or your book will be hard to catalogue, and therefore find. My novella is burried in such a deep niche I’ve had l

Writing fiction is creative writing. No matter how much you pants or plot, you need to be creative -to come up with new material worth reading, whether for fun or for transformativity. The number one destroyer of the creative process is the inability to associate. A is like B because or xyz. Only if C and D are the same. The web of associations creates a canvas. And the story told on it is your creation, the words and wordplay, your skill / style. So the next time something b

There is a danger, when writing shorter fiction stories, that you get careless. Sometimes write things you regret later. This danger disappears from novels and longer stories because you are afforded more time and space and often think long and hard during and before writing. My cheatsheet tip is to be 100% focused on the aspects of one concept only when writing 3-5, even 6-7 pagers. Also, don’t have more than 1 central / main character, and keep to just a few scenes / venues

In the course of my short career, I have written more than a few stories I did not finish. They were good ones as well, promising. This I guess is termed writer’s block. Lately, I analyzed it. As they say, rule of thumb: start too well and you usually can’t continue. Lots of times, I made the saves, not because it was possible, but because I had to. The book was already half done, the story begging to be delivered. And the times I DNF-ed were when I had laid out a scene and c

Feeling worthless after reading someone else’s work is just a sign you’ve been idolizing what you cannot / do not write. It happened to me, subbing to Strange Horizons. The quality of their publications was beyond what I might ever achieve. It was then that I realized I needed to stop running myself down. I needed to up my strengths —transformativeness, political-philosophical sci-fi. People would read me for my intellectual goodies, not for my skill, turning the pen. And whe

Here’s my tip on starting off your (fiction) novel on a good footing. It takes 2 questions. The first is what can you believe? The second is what can you unbelieve? Believe me, the things you believe in are not enough to start a novel well. You need to imagine away what you need to change. When you can do this well, you can write your opening, or if you pre-plot -begin drafting your outline. Today, I used this technique to create a strong fictional skeleton for my novel’s fin

I’m a new, published author. I started writing in 2019, just 7 years ago. I became pretty good at the craft in 2022, after 3 years of practice, when I self-published a collection of 3 short stories (mss2). In 2025, I began talks to hybrid publish with Partridge Singapore, and the result was my first paperback novella, ‘iS’, released early 2026. Just 100 pages / 20k words. DeepSeek labelled it a ‘potential cult classic’, ‘the thinking man’s sci-fi’. Currently, I’m working on m