“Storyboard 75” compiles some of the most popular posts from the archives at Nieman Storyboard, a resource for exploring the art and craft of storytelling. Writers: bookmark this page and return to it again and again.

“A novel is hard because it needs to be hard, and the novel is hard because it’s yours.” On his blog Terribleminds, Chuck Wendig offers advice to writers at the start of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.

“Tomorrow, again, I’ll get up, do the Things That Are Necessary to help pay the bills and then I’ll turn to those Things That Matter.” At Parhelion, a new literary magazine, Evan Guilford-Blake reflects on why he writes.

Read a snippet from the first chapter of Ann Patchett’s new novel on Musing, the blog of her Nashville bookstore. The Dutch House follows two siblings over five decades, “from their early years to their exile, by their stepmother, from the childhood home they both cherished.”

“And instead of pointing yourself in the unknown direction, into the dark forest, into the layers of fog — you set forth onto the well-lit, well-marked path. The worn path…. And it’s fear that put you there.” On his blog Terrible Minds, Chuck Wendig gives sound advice to writers: chase what you love.

In an interview at Literary Hub, Toni Morrison says she wasn’t interested in writing at an early age. “No, I didn’t think about writing until I was 39. I read all the time. I could read when I was three years old and that’s what I did. At some point, I realized that there was […]