Writing Tips and Advice

Welcome to Dave Poyer's advice for the muse-ridden! If you're an aspiring writer, this may be the most valuable part of this website for you. It includes some of my most popular pieces/talks, written for various venues, on the topics writers seem to want the most advice on. (Sort of an FAQ for writers.) These files range from 3000-9000 words, and are text only. They're copyrighted and are furnished for your personal reading only, not for republication or distribution in any form. Downloading them means you accept these terms.  I've heard back that they were helpful from quite a few visitors since this site first went up, and I hope they work for you.

Lenore and I make an occasional sideline of teaching.  She has an MFA and I have a lot of experience.  Individually or together we've taught or presented at Florida State University, the Cape May Institute, The Naval Academy, George Mason University, Eckerd College, Florida Community College, Old Dominion University, University of Pittsburgh, The New College, and many other venues.  We've been featured on Voice of America, in Poets and Writers Magazine, and on the syndicated PBS series “Writer To Writer.”  If you'd like to invite me, or both of us, to speak at your conference, college, writers' group, or festival, please see the Contact Information page. 

• Something for Nothing : Three Mistakes, 3 Misconceptions, and 2 Pieces of Advice Beginning Writers Need to Hear

• From Inside to Outside , Outside to Inside: Character Development in Fiction

• Planning and Writing the Action Adventure Novel

• The Second Eye of Woden: An Approach to Ethics through Fiction

• In the Wake of Melville and Conrad: Writing the Modern Sea Novel

• The Enemy is Us: Ecology, Science, Heroes, and Villains in a Post-Cold-War World

• Where Do Ideas Come From? Opening the Wellsprings of Creativity

• Agents: A Few Remarks to Those Who Seek One

• Crafting the Braided Narrative: Techniques and Tools for Planning and Revising Long, Complex Novels

• Seven Habits of Highly Effective Book Marketers: How to Sell Your Manuscript to Publishers in the 21st Century

• Bring your Hero Back for More: The Secrets of Designing Sequels and Series Novels
 

I'll add more presentations as time goes on.

Though writing is a lonely art, it's not good to wall yourself off too thoroughly.  Plus, you need to hear how others react to your work.  I recommend attending local writers' workshops, if you can locate one near you, and going to as many writers' conferences as you can conveniently make.  They help educate you in the craft.  They give you contacts and names that you'll need come marketing time.  And they stoke that fire in the belly we all need.

I'm a regular speaker at the First Coast Writers' Festival, held each spring at Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Florida. For more information on the Festival, or on the First Coast contests for poetry, novels, and short fiction, click here or write to Writers' Festival, FCCJ North Campus, 4501 Capper Road, Jacksonville, FL 32218. Another excellent conference you will often see me at is the James River Writers Festival in Richmond, Virginia, held near the end of September/beginning of October. For information on the JRWF, go here.

There are lots of other good conferences too.  See the lists in Writer's Digest or Poets & Writers.

Good luck!

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David Poyer is possibly the best known writer of American sea fiction alive today.  His most recent book is THAT ANVIL OF OUR SOULS (Simon & Schuster, July 2005).  Check out his work and career advice at the Home Page location below.

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