Want to learn how to create characters?

Or how to plot a novel, write a book, or start or maintain your writing career? Or do you want to find something good to read? I can help.  My name is Holly Lisle, and I'm a full-time writer with 32 published novels and a 33rd in progress, as well as an online writing instructor. Welcome.

If you yearn to create rather than merely consume, if you are fighting to write something out of nothing using your mind and hands and passion, everything on this site was written for you.

Start with my articles, FAQs, how-tos and workshops.

If you read fiction not for a recap of what is, but to explore what could be, and what should be, to discover the best of humanity rising above the worst of conflicts, I write the sort of stories you love.

Explore the fiction I've written and am writing here.

If you dare to ask both Why? and What if? in exploring not just fiction but life itself, and if you are not afraid to find honest--frequently politically incorrect--answers, you and I share a similar philosophy.

You'll enjoy the essays in my writing diary.

If you're looking for writing guidance, so many writers have asked me to help them learn the complex process of writing professionally that I've now developed short courses, a huge "how to write your novel course," a how to revise your novel course, plus more I'm still working on.

If you're already writing, and you're looking for a new fiction market, or if you're a reader looking for great new writers, my war to rebuild the midlist starts with Rebel Tales.

The community is up and running, I'm building my delivery platform, and I have editors onboard.

If you've wondered what a fantasy novel looks like in first draft, I'm writing a story and a concept I'm passionate about in first draft and posting TalysMana online as I write it for anyone who cares to read it -- and you're invited to read along.