If you are someone who writes – either a little or a lot – for your job or as a hobby, it’s easy to think: “Well, shoot, writing fiction doesn’t look very difficult.” Don’t believe this when you think it, because writing fiction is HARD. Writing a 200-300 page novel takes a tremendous amount of creativity and storytelling skill, which becomes evident only when you take on the task yourself. When I started writing fiction I reread some of my favorite fiction books, this time from the perspective of a writer rather than a reader. This little exercise creates a whole new level of admiration for what the author had accomplished.