Welcome to Crystal Crawford's official author blog!

A question I'm asked repeatedly: What about “Show, Don’t Tell”? How do I do it? What are the rules?

Here are some things to consider before committing to the crunch of 50,000 words in November.

a brief bullet-point list of some of the things I learned from my frenzied first-time NaNoWriMo experience...

A good self-edit can make a huge difference in your writing, but only if you know how to do it well. Here are 7 tips to help you self-edit..

Vibrant, memorable characters are the heart of storytelling and the window through which you are able to access your readers’ emotions.

Writing is solitary, but I have learned how much stronger and better, my writing can be when I have the benefit of a writing community.

Writers have a unique and important challenge: take ideas, experience, language – and assemble them into something altogether different...

How do you overcome the fear of others reading your work? The simplest answer to this is actually the most difficult to execute...

As both a writer and a writing instructor, I read a lot of books on writing.  Here are my top book recommendations for writers.

There are two reasons a reader might cringe while reading a story... The difference between these two reasons can make or break a story.

What is Creative Independence? I’m glad you asked. 😉

So this is my motivational speech to you today, any of you who are writers: GO FAIL. Here's why...

Characters or plot – which matters more? When you’re planning out a story, how do you decide what to focus on?

Characters are complex creations, but the most memorable characters have at least these 5 things in common...

Doing SOMETHING is better than doing nothing.

Welcome to Part 1 of my “Free Writing Software Review” Series.   This series provides in-depth reviews of free writing programs available fo

I spent hours testing out multiple writing programs, mostly free, and comparing their features, then turned the data into a handy chart!

My honest review of Scrivener.

A comparison of the benefits of going fingers-to-keyboard versus those of the traditional pencil-to-page method.

If you want your writing to be the best it can be, you will eventually need to revise. here are my top 4 tips for revision.