Letters To My Writers

Hey team! Happy 2026! We’re in the middle of a cosmic revolution with all the outer planets changing sign in the span of just a few months (hasn’t happened for 6000 years), some weird it-sort-of-behaves-like-a-comet-but-it’s-not-actually-a-comet thing ripping a straight line through our solar system and seeding love and light in its wake, and the sun barfing enormous waves of plasma in our direction, setting off all kinds of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Cue the year of the Fire Horse.

But hey, book sales were up by 1.9% last year overall—and fiction is killing it right now! Adult fiction deals in 2025 were up by 9.3%, and that’s on top of last year’s 10%.

So I decided to put out a post where I pull back the curtain a little on some of the shenanigans that go on between me and my fiction writers. Because unless you’ve worked with a book coach, there’s a good chance you don’t really know what kind of feedback you’ll be getting, or how deep, or how granular.

(I mean, I don’t ever really know what kind of feedback I’ll be giving, either, until I get inside a writer’s pages and settle in for the day.)

Below, I’ve clipped just a tiny lil section from two editorial letters to two different writers. I’ve chosen these selections because they speak to common learning edges I see in a lot of fiction writers.

The first learning edge is keeping our eyes on how the words work inside the reader’s brain, because that’s who’s shelling out cash to buy your book.

The second learning edge is…well, it’s keeping our eyes on how the words work inside the reader’s brain, because that’s who’s shelling out cash to buy your book.

Now let’s go behind the curtain.

Letter 1

Lemme queue it up for ya.

The following is a segment of an editorial letter I wrote a few weeks back to my writer who’s planning out their first novel, a work of speculative fiction (likely for the new adult category, although that remains to be seen; it’s early days yet and we’re just building the Blueprint). This is actually the introduction to their first ed letter, so you’ll see me orienting them to my role as their book coach, and what I’m looking for when I’m in their pages. Here we go:

The reader is the only one who matters

Okay, I’ve given you a lot of feedback here, but I want to assure you that this is all normal. Every book is like a fingerprint, so I’m looking at different considerations at each deadline. You’ll never really get to a place where Alex doesn’t have anything to say! jsyk

Today I went deep on a couple fundamental considerations that will ultimately help you sort out the storyline, which is what you’ve been struggling with. I may not have hit on The Thing, but in pushing back against your ideas here, it’ll spark new thinking in you, and that’s where the magic happens. You might not see fixes right away, but by me offering a different perspective or asking questions informed by my deep understanding of what readers are looking for, you’ll have new questions to assign your creative brain to work on.

That last bit, about what readers are looking for? That’s the skin I operate in as your book coach. I’m never looking at this like Alex, who brings X, Y and Z understanding to the world. I’m always looking at it like Regan, or Nathen, or Jax, or Cameron, or Nifemi, and I’m asking myself:

Does the reader have a clear sense of what this character wants the other one to do?

Can the reader picture this event in their mind?

Does this scene make sense? Are the beats in the fistfight realistic?

Does the reader understand how afraid this protagonist is of being in the passenger seat?

Would a person ever speak like that for real?

We want the reader to trust you fully to take us on a journey where we entirely forget our own lives because the life between the covers of your book is so seamless and believable. Like we trust Margaret Atwood.

So when I’m pushing hard, that’s the reason. Throughout our journey together, we keep a relentless focus on the reader’s experience, because they’re your customer—and the one you want to trust you so fully that your message works its way into their belief system, and ultimately changes the way they see the world.

The pen is mightier than the sword. Without further ado, let us wield.

Letter 2

Now here’s a segment of an editorial letter to a writer of literary fiction. This is their twenty-seventh ed letter, and we’ve covered the terrain that I talk about in this selection a few different times, but the thing about learning edges is…they’re edges.

Edges are new. And building mastery takes practice. So I’ve revisited this one a lot.

This writer has been working with me for a year and a half, and we’re about halfway through his first draft. Note: not every writer takes this long. (But they damn well should. You can’t start ski racing when you’re 15 and expect to get picked for the Olympic team by 16. I got a big old soapbox sitting right under my desk for this very purpose, but I won’t pull it out right now. Just…remember to be realistic, guys.)

Also note: this writer has given me permission to share any and all of his materials with my audience at any time. Otherwise I anonymize. This writer is incredibly generous—and an outstanding learner. He’s read more books on craft than me, and he chews through lit fiction at the rate of maybe a couple novels per week. It’s ridiculous. I can’t keep up. I can’t possibly keep up.

And I love it.

And no, you don’t have to do the same. But it’s an astonishing flywheel for improvement.

Here we go:

Use your gamer brain

Did you used to play videogames? Maybe you still do. I left you a comment on page 12 about when Levin enters the factory and sees Frank go sliding off into the darkness, past a bunch of machines. This is very cool, except one thing would make it flow better, and that is to have Levin see and paint the setting first, before letting Frank go off into it.

This is how our brains work. If you’re in a game and entering a new space or situation, your brain quickly groks the surroundings. Sometimes this happens fast enough to be simultaneous with perceiving what other people are doing, but regardless, the brain is always mapping our environment. This is the ancient, evolutionarily advantageous work of the midbrain, which kept us safe from threat.

You don’t even have to be in a game; you could just be at a summer barbecue at a new friend’s house; the same principle applies.

Let your characters do the same kind of mapping for us, and the reader will have a much more satisfying journey through the scene. The magic of this, as you’ve come to understand about so many seemingly miniscule considerations in writing, is that the reader will never be able to pinpoint why—but if something is missing, our brains will detect the wobble, even if we could never really explain where it’s coming from.

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Kay, hopefully there’s something here you can take away and apply in your own work. Love you all, thanks for reading, and—back to that shift into 2026—DO YOUR BREATHWORK. You’re gonna need it this year. 🪐