Blog
The Other Half of the Verb Problem: Who’s Doing the Action?
The books readers get lost in — the ones where you look up and an hour has passed — put you inside a character's experience. You're not watching from outside. You're in the body, feeling what they feel, seeing what they see. A lot of what creates that effect comes down to verbs, and if[...]
When Revision Gets Fun: The Gold Already Waiting in Your Pages
You've finished your draft. You've done the structural work — you know what the book is, how the pieces connect, where things need to move. And now you're back inside the scenes themselves. This is where revision stops feeling like repair work and starts feeling like discovery again – and fun! Because here's what most[...]
Learn to write your memoir with 30+ experts!
If you're a current or aspiring memoirist, I've got something exciting to share that will help you feel more supported as a writer. Dirty Messy Alive: Embodied Memoir-Writing Workshop Series is a free 4-day event that explores memoir-writing from start to finish through presentations from 30+ skilled memoirists and writing teachers. These sessions cover everything[...]
Discovery Writing: What It Is, Why It Works, and How to Try It
Some of the best novels ever written were never outlined. Stephen King famously compares writing to excavation — you don't build a story, you uncover it, like a fossil. Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Alice Walker — all discovery writers. All writers who began with a character or a situation or a question and let the[...]
Find Your Prose Rhythm: How to Write Description That Keeps Readers Turning Pages
The books readers can't put down don't just have great plots or compelling characters. They have prose that moves. Sentences that flow into each other so naturally that the reader stops noticing the words and starts living inside the scene. That's what prose rhythm does. And once you understand how it works, you can hear[...]
The Backwards Outline: Why the Best Revision Tool Comes After Your First Draft
You finished your draft. Maybe it took six months. Maybe it took three years. And now you're looking at this sprawling, imperfect, occasionally brilliant mess of pages, and you're not sure what to do with it. Here's what I'd tell you to do: outline it. Not before you write the next draft. Not to plan[...]
You Already Know the Concepts. Here’s What’s Actually Missing.
Most writers who come to me aren't starting from zero. They've read the craft books. They've taken the workshops. They know what showing and telling means. They've heard about scene versus summary, about the importance of grounding your reader, about strong verbs and weak ones. They can talk about structure, about character arc, about pacing.[...]
What Writers Are Saying About Working With a Coach (Early Findings)
A few weeks ago I put out a short survey: if you've worked with a writing coach, editor, or course — mine or anyone else's — I wanted to hear about it. What it cost. What changed. What you'd tell another writer before they signed up for anything. This isn't a finished report. It's[...]
Sentence Structure in Fiction: How to Write Stronger Scenes One Sentence at a Time
What Is Sentence Structure? Sentence structure in fiction is how you put together your words, phrases, clauses, and use sentence lengths to control a reader’s experience. Novelists use sentence structure to shape pacing, build tension, emphasize important moments, and develop narrative voice. The most important element of Sentence Structure is control. To keep your reader connected,[...]
Case Study: How Julie Learned To See Herself As A Writer
Julie Parmentier primarily writes mystery fiction, although she has also written short fiction, essays, and nonfiction. Book a Strategy Session Case Study: What made Julie want to work with Seth? Julie took a writing course with me, and after that she started working on a mystery novel. She[...]
75+ took my quiz. Here’s what surprised me.
Last week I sent out the "What Kind of Writer Are You" quiz, and the response caught me off guard — over 75 of you have taken it so far. One pattern jumped out immediately. The single most common thing tripping writers up wasn't lack of an outline. It was the opposite: "My outline is[...]
How to Revise a Novel: Start With Structure, Not Sentences
You finished your draft. Maybe it was last week. Maybe it was last year. Maybe it's been sitting in a folder for longer than you'd like to admit. Either way, you're in the same place a lot of writers find themselves: you have pages, and you don't quite know what to do with them[...]
How to Pants Your Way to a Novel
The middle path between plotting and pantsing that actually gets books finished. "Once we really got into it, I actually found the outlining kind of annoying," a client told me recently. She'd tried detailed plotting systems, character worksheets, and extensive planning documents. "It's like, no, I guess I'm just going to sit down and write[...]
What I Taught at Novel Summer Camp (And What You Can Still Use)
Last week I had the privilege of joining ProWritingAid's Novel Summer Camp for a live workshop on pacing — one of the most fundamental and most misunderstood tools in a fiction writer's kit. The session is recorded, and you can watch it below. But I also want to give you the core ideas in[...]
Case Study: How Seth Helped A Writer Rediscover Joy in Her Writing
Cheryl Rodeheffer is a former public relations and marketing executive who now writes contemporary fiction, often centered around love stories. Book a Strategy Session Case Study: Why Cheryl needed a book coach Cheryl has wanted to write since she was a kid. 14 years ago, when she was still[...]
Novel Summer Camp starts today!
Join me today for a free workshop: The Speed of Story: How Pacing Keeps Readers Turning Pages. It's free to attend and open to all. Here's what I'll be covering: The difference between a story that pulls readers forward and one that loses them isn't plot — it's pace. In this workshop, writing coach and[...]
Why Is Writing Fiction So Hard?
If you've been working on your novel for a while—and I mean really working, not just thinking about it—you've probably had this feeling at least once: I know how to write. Why is this so hard? Maybe you were an English student who always did well. Maybe you wrote papers in college that got praised.[...]
Come write with me this summer
This summer, I'm hosting a free webinar as part of Novel Summer Camp: a free, four-week writing experience from ProWritingAid, running July 13 - August 7, 2026. I'd love for you to join me. My session is called The Speed of Story: How Pacing Keeps Readers Turning Pages. It's free to attend and open[...]
Make Readers See Your Scenes
The Best Books Make Readers See Their Scenes. Yours Can, Too. There's a reason certain books get finished and certain books get put down. It's not the premise. It's not the genre. It's not even the writing, exactly — not in the way most people mean when they talk about "good writing." It's something more[...]
The Books Readers Trust All Share This
For more about writing a book readers can't put down, read this post first.There's a reason certain books get recommended and certain books get quietly abandoned. It's not always the plot. It's not always the prose. Often it's something subtler, something readers feel before they can name it: they don't trust the characters. They don't[...]
Write the Book You Most Want to Read
There's a piece of advice I keep coming back to, and I gave it to a client recently when she worried that her novel—ambitious, sprawling, decades in the character’s lives—might be too much. Too historical. Too personal. Too big. I told her: write the book you most want to read. If it doesn't exist yet,[...]
Have You Ever Moved Three Times in Two Weeks?
A couple of years ago, I helped a friend move apartments. By the end of the day, she was surrounded by boxes in a new living room, trying to figure out where to put the couch. It took her about a week before the place started to feel like home — before she stopped reaching[...]
Writing Craft Advice from Denis Johnson
Press play to listen to a craft lecture by Denis Johnson. In 1999 I had the good fortune to study with one of my heroes, the novelist and short story writer Denis Johnson (Train Dreams, Jesus' Son, The Name of the World, Tree of Smoke, Nobody Move, Seek). This happened at a workshop[...]
Case Study: How One Writer Found the Missing Piece in Her Process
Deborah Willbanks writes thrillers and is transitioning into historical fiction. Book a Strategy Session Case Study: Why Deborah needed a book coach Before working with me, Deborah had received developmental edits on a full manuscript but wasn't confident that she could finish it on her own. "I believed [the[...]
When Spitballing Fails: Writing as the Tool for Discovery
Here's a scenario I see often in my coaching work: A writer has a plot problem. Something isn't clicking—maybe the motive doesn't feel strong enough, or there's a gap in the logic, or a character's actions don't quite make sense. So we talk it through. We throw ideas at the wall. We brainstorm. We spitball.[...]
