Every year, nearly half a million people take up the challenge of Novel Writing Month. This huge event represents the tip of the iceberg: we love to write, but when we start, we run into the same questions that have tormented writers since the time of Homer. Alan Anderson's Writing Coach in a Box is here to help answer a range of questions: What should you look for when you're rereading a draft? What are the most common mistakes first-time authors make? How can you inject excitement into flat prose? How do you make readers root for your protagonist? What verbs should you avoid and which must you use? Why should you mix long and short sentences?

This ingenious toolkit answers all these questions and hundreds more. Drawing on years of successful writing and publishing, as well as careful study of how-to-write manuals and style guides, Writing Coach in a Box will challenge, advise, encourage, and inspire aspiring and established writers. Because the cards address universal problems of story and style, they won't just help novelists, but instead, anyone who writes. So whether you want to create better books, blog posts, press releases, memoirs, news stories, or screenplays, you'll get the coaching you need.