It’s a weird and complicated experience, picking up a book that covers familiar territory and realizing it’s better than what you might have written. That was the case when I first read Helen Sword’s ...

When I watch creative writers perform, I hear a host of mostly unspoken questions. In their body language, self-presentation, jokes, and post-reading interactions, they seem to be asking: Am I boring?

Tone and style are about how you relate to others. Think about your audience and write in the style they expect. We all have different ways of expressing ourselves in our speech and in our writing. In ...