Alyssa Matesic

When you tune out the noise and instead honor YOUR unique voice, your readers will:

👉 Relate to your characters
👉 Connect with your themes
👉 Admire what you bring to the table as an author
👉 Feel so much more connected to your story

Authenticity shows on the page.

Stop writing to trends.

Stop writing what you think publishing wants.

Stop writing to please others.

And start writing what feels right and true to you.

So tell me: what's one hardship your protag has recently faced?

Many authors think this means they have to give their protag a traumatic backstory. Not true!

Realistic, non-traumatic struggles include:

👉 Being passed up for a promotion
👉 Not getting into their dream college
👉 A rocky sibling relationship
👉 Moving to a new city and feeling lonely

Give them a struggle in their recent past.

All of us go through tough experiences, and having your protag share that with the reader will make them feel raw, vulnerable, and authentic.

We connect so much more more with characters who have gone through something.

I've read several novels recently with flat protagonists.

Their lives are pretty stable, they're relatively content, no unhealed wounds.

Good for them, but where's the depth?

Here's one EASY but super effective way to make your protag more layered, dynamic, and human:

If you do need to keep a secret, make sure it pays off.

But when you do this TOO MUCH, the reader gets frustrated. At some point, we expect to learn what they're hiding.

Consider what the narrative would look like if the character was upfront with the reader.

Would that actually bring us closer to them?

3️⃣ Keeping secrets

Sometimes you need to withhold info for suspense, but do so sparingly and intentionally.

I often see authors try to create intrigue by having their protag keep secrets.

Make sure you go beyond what's happening EXTERNALLY in the scene and illuminate what's happening INTERNALLY for the POV char.

We're stepping into their shoes and experiencing the story alongside them. So when you keep their emotions, feelings, reactions, etc. from us, you create narrative distance.

2️⃣ Withholding the POV character's thoughts

This is a big one.

Most novels are written either in close third or first person, which means that we have deep access to the POV characters’ minds.

Another way this might manifest is if you are having characters recount an event via dialogue. If that exchange becomes so overwhelmed by the details of this event, that scene might feel very burdensome and cumbersome to interpret.

Try bringing us into the moment itself and see what happens.

1️⃣ Recounting events in retrospect

Any time you find yourself spending a lot of time recounting an event that happened off-stage (not in a scene we see), consider if the narrative would actually be more engaging if you SHOWED that event when it actually occurred.

You can achieve certain literary effects by deliberately using narrative distance, but oftentimes, it just ends up confusing or disorienting the reader, so make sure you're using it strategically.

So how do authors create narrative distance unintentionally — and what should they do instead?

As a general rule, you want to minimize narrative distance, especially if you're writing in close third or first person, because that creates an immersive experience for the reader and keeps them engaged.

The beauty of fiction is that we're brought close into the POV characters' minds and experiences, so don't keep them at arm's length from us!

Here are the three biggest ways narrative distance manifests in your novel without you even noticing. 👇

One of the biggest issues I see in manuscripts creeps in without authors knowing.

Too much narrative distance (the space between the reader and the characters/events of the story).

If you're wondering:
-What does that rejection REALLY mean?
-How many queries are considered "normal"?
-What are my real chances of getting representation?

...make sure to preorder it today! ☺️

If querying has ever felt confusing, overwhelming, or just completely opaque, we wrote this guide for YOU.

We use real industry data (from agent surveys + more than 4 million actual queries) to bring you never-before-seen insights into the querying process.

I've been working on this massive project quietly for almost two years, and I'm SO excited to finally share it. 🎉

I wrote a book with the creator of QueryTracker, the no. 1 tool writers use to research and track agent submissions.

It's like repainting a car that has no engine. It looks great, but it doesn’t actually drive.

That's why I like editing from "big to small."

First, focus on all the foundational story elements and ensure they're landing.

Some tough love I give my editing clients:

Pretty sentences won't fix a broken story.

When you first start revising your draft, there's no use making every sentence sparkle. Because those lines might be heavily revised, moved, or cut entirely!

If you're experiencing a creative block, I know a guaranteed way to overcome it:

Take a break.

But not just any kind of break. (No scrolling on your phone for two hours.)

Here are 3 tips for taking an intentional, creatively restorative break. 🧘‍♀️

Most Authors Don't Know This Bestseller Secret What's behind the blockbuster success of recent novels like People We Meet on Vacation and The Housemaid? It's not just the plot or the writing — it’s nonlin...

What's behind the success of novels like People We Meet on Vacation and The Housemaid?

It’s not just the prose, the characters, or the plot.

It’s how the authors manipulate time to keep readers hooked.

In this video, I reveal how you can apply this trick to your story. 📚

youtu.be/GSWj6xfC8wg

It certainly wasn't easy, but I'm so glad that I opened a new chapter in my life by writing a book.

How has writing a book changed your life?

"I proved I can achieve a difficult goal, let’s set another one."

When you do something this difficult once, you build the confidence to take on other difficult things — both inside and outside of writing.

You start thinking: What else could I do, now that I’ve done this?

You can query agents. You can self-publish. You can write another book. You can switch genres. You can build an audience around your stories or share your writing journey to inspire others.

Even if you choose not to show this book to another soul, you can say:

5️⃣ I’ve unlocked new possibilities

By writing a book, you’ve opened a dozen doors that didn’t
even exist before.

If you shared any part of your journey — on social media, in a writing group, or in a personal conversation — then you’ve likely inspired someone else already.