The Style Optimizer blog

Articles for fiction writers: how stories are built, how characters change, where to start a world and which creative techniques get you past the blank page, from the hero’s journey to the I Ching and the Tarot.

All articles

• Write every day: the flame that tracks your writing streak
• Types of narrator: who tells the story and what they know
• Alliteration vs. cacophony: when repeated sounds help or hurt
• Book tracking app: what a good reading log should save
• Self-publishing a book: traditional, hybrid or on your own
• Writers' letters: how to read literary correspondence
• How to analyze a novel: a six-lens guide for readers
• How to write a literary review: structure and example
• How to tell if a book is good: five criteria
• Creative writing exercises to beat writer's block
• Enjambment in poetry: definition, types and examples
• Character profile template: six questions that work
• Rhetorical devices: types, examples and how to spot them
• Gamifying reading without turning it into homework
• Worldbuilding app: your novel’s universe in one place
• Free verse: what holds a poem up without meter
• Dialogue tags: when “said” is all you need
• Omniscient narrator: what it knows and what it can't
• World literature quiz: 12 questions with answers
• Book club questions that actually spark discussion
• Concrete and abstract words: differences and examples
• How to organize the books you've read and keep your notes
• Infodumping in fiction: how to spot it and fix it
• Tarot for Creative Writing: 7 Spreads for Storytellers
• 5 Esoteric Techniques to Beat Writer’s Block
• I Ching for Writers: From Hexagram to Scene
• Turning Points in Fiction: What They Are and Where They Go
• The Hero’s Journey: The 12 Stages and Their Limits
• In Medias Res and Other Ways to Open a Story
• Worldbuilding: Where to Start When You Build a World
• Submitting Your Manuscript to a Publisher: What Editors Look For First
• How to Keep a Reading Journal: What to Write Down and Why
• Online Writing Workshops: What to Look For and What to Avoid
• Character Archetypes and Arcs of Transformation
• Games for Readers: Nine Literary Game Ideas Beyond Trivia