Welcome to Crystal Crawford's official author blog!

this newest resource is for fiction-writers who – like me – struggle to keep the big-picture story neatly in mind while writing...

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the final post in my “Plotting Your Story” series: Plotting Your Story, Step #7: The Perfect Ending!

Hi, everyone, and welcome to post #6 in my “Plotting Your Story” series: Plotting Your Story, Step #6: Detailed Outlines!

Hi, everyone, and welcome to post #5 in my “Plotting Your Story” series: Plotting Your Story, Step #5: Revelations!

Today’s post is the next in the Plotting Your Story series: Plotting Your Story, Step #4: Thematic Threads!

Today’s post is the next in the Plotting Your Story series: Plotting Your Story, Step #3: External Story (Plot)!

Today’s post is the next in the Plotting Your Story series: Plotting Your Story, Step #2: Internal Story (Characters)!

Today’s post is the first in the Plotting Your Story series: Plotting Your Story, Step #1: Premise!

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...

Author's note as of 9-2-20: This mess of a novel I mentioned in this post went on to become The Edge of Nothing, the first book in The...

2016 was my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. For the first few days, it rocked!  But then, I hit a snag: I hadn’t had time to outline very much b