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A writing coach helps you develop strong writing habits, supporting you on your writing journey and working collaboratively on specific projects. A writing coach is invested in your long-term success. They will teach you to set achievable goals, help you hone a process that works best for you, and develop your craft as a writer.

A writing coach wears several hats. First and foremost, the writing coach will work with you to develop your story, flesh out your characters, and perhaps most importantly, keep you accountable.

What a Writing Coach Does

Writing coaches work with you from the outline through full draft revisions. And by setting deadlines, writing coaches help keep writers from getting stuck. After all, when we have to turn in something, anything, we’re much more likely to produce.

A good writing coach wants to help you develop as a writer. You’re more than one project! A writing coach will work with you one-on-one to develop strong writing habits, helping you organize your ideas and set goals that will take you well beyond your time together.

How to Work With a Writing Coach

Writing coaches will work with clients for a set number of sessions, usually establishing goals at the beginning. If you have an idea but are uncertain how to structure it, start with outline coaching. The writing coach will help firm up your premise and then develop your plot and character arcs.

If you’ve launched your project and feel stuck, a writing coach will help you work through different ideas, offering suggestions based on where you want the story to go. This may also involve pushing you out of your comfort zone to add emotional layers. Readers want characters who are relatable and empathetic. This means drawing from your own emotional well, based on your experiences. A writing coach will help talk you through this process, making the difficult more comfortable.

While most coaches aren’t necessarily editors, I like to employ both my story coaching and editorial skills. While brainstorming a story and roughing out an outline is fun, I find it deeply satisfying to help writers to improve their craft, showing them how to make stylistic changes that will create stronger prose by editing their drafts. I then put comments in the margins as to why I recommend specific changes at the sentence level. This is, of course, in addition to the comments on the story.

A coach’s job is to help maximize performance. As a writing coach, I want my clients to become strong, confident writers who are creating satisfying stories readers will love. I coach the person and teach the craft.