Recently I looked over my notes from over a decade of writing workshops and 14 years of building my own writing career. These notes contained many gems on the “do’s” of writing.

But what about the “don’ts?”

Some of the most interesting thoughts on writing–the pet peeves, the off-the-cuff comments–showed up in a simple scan for the word “don’t.”

Here are some of the best pieces of advice from over a decade of workshops at the Miami Writers Institute.

This post is a collection of great one-liners on how to build better characters.

Recently, I looked over my notes from fourteen years of attending writing workshops. One of the things that struck me, looking back over the notes, was how often these instructors—well-known authors from around the country—were able to describe their work processes almost as if they were mechanics, or lab technicians, or computer programmers. Professional authors, it turns out, approach their work like. . . work. They’ve thought about how to reverse-engineer good writing. They have methods for picking topics and following the threads of their subject matter. They have strategies for getting unstuck.