A guide to my writing advice content
A guide to my writing advice content
All of my articles, guides, and blog posts on storytelling from 2018 to the present day.
Ever since I wrote The 24 Laws of Storytelling in 2018 (and before that) I wrote a number of writing advice articles to jonbaldie.com and then, later, to writingadvice.co. Sadly the latter has had some SEO issues and the articles hosted on it rarely make it onto any Google searches. This limits the exposure of these articles, a shame since I work hard to maintain those guides, occasionally updating them as I pick up new bits of wisdom from experience and from my fellow writers.
Just to give you some context of Google’s broken reindexing algorithm, at the time of writing, Google complains that this article throws a 500 error. I’m a software engineer by trade. I’ve loaded that page across a half-dozen devices and there are no problems with it. Google nevertheless persists with its assertion—probably a result of a cached page they haven’t cleared out—and refuses to index the page. Luckily I am just as persistent and have thought of some ways to improve the exposure.
Here’s one way: Google seems happy to index my Substack articles, so, in an effort to improve the exposure of my writing content, I’m linking each article here with a brief summary and a link. Perhaps these new backlinks will rouse Google’s indexing algorithm to index them properly. I’ve sorted the articles chronologically from the beginning in January 2018 up to the present. Perhaps I will keep this page updated as I add new content. That depends on how deeply Google continues to snore.
I’ve marked the best content with an asterisk, and you can find most of these towards the end of this guide. I guess this makes sense. The list is in chronological order and my writing skills have improved since I started writing these articles in early 2018. I’ve also—cheekily—added my three (at time of writing) nonfiction books on storytelling, which I think compliment the list well. Give one of them try if you enjoy the list of free content on this page!
Pain, Regret, and Redemption: Why The Last Jedi Is the Best Entry in the Modern Star Wars Saga — 21st January, 2018
This post was my very first analysis of a story. Viewed one way, it’s just a 26-year-old guy raving about a story he loved. But looking back, there are some useful bits of advice in there. The story’s emphasis on pain, regret, and redemption form a great arc for Luke, which some didn’t like, but more than a few found profoundly meaningful.
The Power of Dialogue: 4 Techniques to Supercharge Your Story — 20th June, 2018
By this point I was fully immersed in writing 24 Laws and trying out a time-tested form of written advice: the numbered list. I base the advice on James Scott Bell’s excellent book on writing dialogue — far more useful than I can ever summarise in this article — although I cringe when I read back what I said about his book’s title!
9 Books on Storytelling You Absolutely Must Read — 8th July, 2018
I continued the numbered list theme with a series of books I’d found useful while researching and writing 24 Laws. This list still holds up, though there are some I’d add and remove. I may write an article on that very topic soon.
Writing Advice from John McPhee — 5th October, 2018
John McPhee is a legend of nonfiction writing, and in this post I tried to distil some of his advice as I understood it at the time.
The 24 Laws of Storytelling: A Practical Handbook for Great Storytellers — 15th November, 2018
My first nonfiction book. I took inspiration for the book’s structure and style from Robert Greene. His books on power, strategy, and mastery were a great influence on my writing at this time.
5 Writing Tips to Eliminate Clutter from Your Prose — 17th November, 2018
I had just published 24 Laws and felt proud of myself. That is, until I read On Writing Well by William Zinsser. This book kicked my ass. This post is an attempted distillation of what I took away from the experience.
What Marvel Can Teach You About Patience in Storytelling — 7th December, 2018
In this post I paid a compliment to the storytellers and planners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They expertly brought the Infinity Saga to a rising crescendo with Avengers: Infinity War in a way that every writer and storyteller can learn from.
How Into the Spider-Verse Makes You Love Its Characters — 14th December, 2018
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse does a wonderful job of making you love its characters, and I tried to explain how in this post. I actually turned this into a YouTube video, but ended up deleting my channel several years ago.
JB: If you’ll indulge me in a quick interlude, I wanted to mention how much, as I write this, it really warms my heart to look back on these posts from a time when I felt truly excited and accomplished after publishing my very first book. A wonderful time. I was lonely at that time, with few friends and lot of anxiety about work. But this area of my life felt good.
How to Achieve All Your Goals in 2019 * — 28th December, 2018
Out of this list so far, I think this one stands up the best. It contains some pieces of advice I still continue to follow. I originally posted this to my email newsletter and received a reply from Kristen Kieffer expressing how much she liked it. Back then Kristen was killing it with her blog, Well Storied, but has since then written a couple of bestselling writing craft guides and grown a large audience.
My Talk on Research and Planning in Storytelling (Transcript) — 11th January, 2019
I was invited to give a talk to a writing group, and so I wrote up an edited (cough, improved) transcript, detailing the most common questions I received. I waffled on a bit during this talk, and I’m worried that it was a bit boring at times. But the attendees seemed happy afterwards, and I was grateful for their time!
Generating Story Structures for Fun and Profit * — 1st March, 2019
James Scott Bell is a star of writing craft books. This post is my summation of one of his best. I included some case studies to help explain how you can generate story structures… basically at will. This is powerful stuff from JSB. In a nutshell, you come up with a scene during your story’s midpoint and use this to craft the structure of your story.
Jungian Psychology for Storytellers — 5th April, 2019
Weirdly it is this post that gets—by far—the most search engine traffic. It is a comprehensive overview of Jung’s ideas and how they translate to storytelling. A niche topic, to be sure, but sometimes it’s those articles that perform the best.
In Defence of the Star Wars Sequel Films — 19th April, 2019
After visiting a London comic-con—and shaking Peter Mayhew’s hand a few months before he passed—I came to realise just how much some Star Wars fans hate the sequel films. They’re not perfect, but in this piece I list their strengths.
Steve Bivans on Fiction Writing and the Drafting Process — 10th May, 2019
Fiction writer Steve Bivans joined me for two hours to talk about the writing process. He was so generous with his time, and I am grateful for that! I actually tried turning this into the first episode of a new podcast, but sadly ended up ditching the idea. Still, you can read the entire transcript here.
Write Your Novel: A Condensed Guide for Building Brilliant Fiction — 31st October, 2019
My second book on storytelling. This is a much shorter and condensed collection of writing advice than 24 Laws.
Crafting Beautiful Stories: How to Fill Your Writing with Awe and Wonder — 29th November, 2019
My third book on storytelling. This one is about awe and wonder, and some practical ways you can use these for your next novel.
How do you write a page-turner? * — 18th January, 2020
After a year away from writing about the craft, I created a new website and kicked things off with a guide to writing page-turners. I picked up these pieces of advice from Dan Brown, a true master of page-turner novels.
Should you write fiction or nonfiction? — 18th January, 2020
This post helps writers to decide between fiction and nonfiction. Not one of my best.
How can writers deal with impostor syndrome? * — 19th January, 2020
This post got a bit of traction on social media. It is a short one, but it should help any writer feel more assured about their craft!
Should you hire an editor for your book? — 23rd January, 2020
This article goes through the pros and cons of hiring an editor. With tools like Grammarly out there, there are now some good options for writers who don’t have discretionary income for editors. But I think this still holds up.
Should you plan your book and use an outline? — 25th January, 2020
Spoiler: yes, you should! Good advice, but not my finest article.
How do you outline a book? — 28th January, 2020
I followed up on the prior post with some more detail on the outlining process from start to end.
How should you take notes when researching a book or novel? — 21st April, 2020
I offer a 7-part plan for effective note-taking. Not one of my best articles.
Can you change a book after you have published it? — 6th August, 2020
It might not be obvious, but on Amazon’s KDP platform you can apply nearly unlimited edits to your published work. The catch is that with ebooks, people who have already bought and downloaded it will not get the updates in their versions.
How do you promote your book as an introvert author? — 17th August, 2020
Some authors seem happy to promote their books, using their extraversion to effortlessly mingle with readers and fellow writers. The rest of us? It’s a little bit harder for us.
How do you use character arcs in your stories? — 19th August, 2020
A discussion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how its character arcs can help novelists and screenwriters alike.
How do you write narrative nonfiction? * — 21st September, 2020
In this article I offer a proven framework for writers aiming to branch into narrative nonfiction. This one’s a must-read.
Can you unpublish a book? — 4th March, 2021
In a nutshell, yes. While this post is a little short, it took an unexpectedly personal turn for me. I unpublished a few of my short nonfiction books and later republished them with improved content. Some didn’t make the cut and remain unpublished.
How do you accurately portray programming and tech in your stories? * — 21st June, 2021
In this post I use my experience as a software engineer to help you to avoid making some common tech blunders in your stories! This is one guide that I’m gutted hasn’t achieved the traction I think it deserves. This can really help writers of all stripes!
Should you let your political views show in your writing? * — 13th July, 2021
Here I explain why you should think twice before adding some hint of your political views into your writing. Odds are you’re not as subtle as you think you are, and you’ll make your readers’ eyes roll hard. I don’t think this one will make me very popular in the online writing community, since I call out their open and biased political slant.
How do you increase the stakes for your protagonist? * — 30th September, 2021
James Scott Bell says that a novel is an account of a lead character’s struggle against death. That death can be physical, professional, or psychological, and determining it is the best way to improve your novel.
Thanks for reading through, and I hope that you find the writing content listed here useful!