On Monday morning we usually worship Jesus for a half an hour or so, and then we take about a half an hour to pray individually and seek God’s voice.

You can do the same thing from your home. As you practice this, I bet it will dramatically change what you accomplish with your writing.

There’s no wrong way to pray. But here are some questions that may be helpful to ask the Lord in your prayer:

(If you’d like a worksheet that you can print out with these questions, download it free here. You can print them out, save them in a notebook, and reflect on them in the future.) 

Of course God is always present with us. But something changes when we’re intentional about inviting Him into what we’re doing.

The post 7 questions to invite God into your writing (Episode 159) appeared first on The Company.

An author website is like a coffee date. It’s your opportunity to introduce yourself to new readers, but if you don’t grab their attention, they can get up and leave at any time.

Brad Pauquette and Alli Prince critiqued four author websites. Their critique will allow you to see some of the most common mistakes authors make.

You’ll also glean a helpful business-minded perspective professional authors use, which you can use to make your own author website powerful and effective.

In this episode, Brad and Alli critique the following websites:

All four of these authors volunteered to have their websites publicly critiqued for your benefit. Note that this was originally offered as a live session. Some of these authors may have already updated their websites based on the feedback they received.

Thank you to these four brave authors for submitting their websites for critique!

Learn more about our ProCritiques and other events on The Company’s website: https://writers.company/

Brad Pauquette is the director of The Company, which provides practical training and support for world-changing Christian writers. He is also the bestselling author of The Novel Matrix. Learn more about Brad and connect with him at https://BradPauquette.com

Alli Prince is the bestselling author of Copper Lies, a YA steampunk adventure, and a graduate of The Company’s full-time apprenticeship program. Learn more about Alli and connect with her at https://alliprince.com

OTHER LINKS

The post Your Author Website Is a Coffee Date: June 2025 ProCritique Recording (Episode 158) appeared first on The Company.

It’s the job of a coach to make sure that the whole team shares the same mission.

When you’re the leader of your writing career, your job is exactly the same.

Do you write for fun? To make money? To make friends? There’s no wrong answer. But when you choose a single mission for your writing, you’ll find that all of the pieces become a lot easier.

Brad Pauquette is the director of The Company and the bestselling author of The Novel Matrix. Connect with Brad on his website: https://bradpauquette.com

Learn more about The Company, become a member, and explore our training programs at https://writers.company

The post What’s your mission for your writing? (Episode 157) appeared first on The Company.

Writing fiction books is a real ministry.

God uses writers to reach the lost, to reveal His word, and to comfort, teach, and inspire believers into their callings.

One of the things that sets The Company apart from other Christian writing groups is our emphasis on professional development and writing for the book market. We don’t give a lot of “follow your heart” advice, we give you the straight truth because we want to see you be successful, sell a ton of books, reach a ton of people, and be able to pay your bills.

However, there’s usually a ditch on both sides of the road. This emphasis on using the marketplace and making money with our work can lead to an easy misconception.

Just because we can make money with our books and because it’s good to make money with our books, doesn’t mean that we have to be profitable to be successful.

Our only goal is to be obedient to the call of Jesus Christ on our lives.

Prefer to read it? Find a similar article on The Company Magazine here: https://writers.company/you-have-one-job-obedience/

LINKS:
Learn more about The Company’s writing and publishing apprenticeship: https://writers.company/training/full-time-apprenticeship/
Become a member of The Company: https://writers.company/membership/

The post You have one job: Obedience (Episode 156) appeared first on The Company.

Want deeper themes in your work? Your descriptions are the key!

From character to settings, your choice of synonyms, similes, and metaphors is where your theme and emotional value gets its grip.

At this ProCritique, Brad Pauquette and Alli Prince critiqued five short stories and novel chapters submitted by the members of The Company:

You can download these stories and read them here: https://writers.company/april-1st-procritique-materials-now-available/

Take the time to read the stories and critique them yourself before you listen. Compare your critique to Brad and Alli’s notes to grow in your ability to articulate issues and opportunities in your own writing.

Brad Pauquette is the bestselling author of The Novel Matrix: The Complete Novel Writing Guide.

Alli Prince is a graduate of The Company’s apprenticeship program and the author of Copper Lies.

Thank you to the brave souls who volunteered their work to be publicly critiqued.

Learn more about our ProCritiques and other events on The Company’s website: https://writers.company/

OTHER LINKS:

Learn more about becoming an apprentice at The Company: https://writers.company/training/full-time-apprenticeship/

Copper Lies on Amazon: https://amzn.to/42CwCXK

The Novel Matrix on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3PXexvN

Become a member of The Company: https://writers.company/membership

The post How to develop themes through descriptions: April 2025 ProCritique Recording (Episode 155) appeared first on The Company.

Vella Karman has changed a lot during her time as an apprentice at The Company. She bravely moved to Cambridge, Ohio right after finishing high school.

What’s it really like to move away from home at 18 to come to the apprenticeship at The Company?

In this episode, Brad Pauquette talks with Vella Karman about:

As part of her apprenticeship, Vella is developing the Fantastical Summer anthology. With this project, she gets to put all of the skills she’s learned about book production to work. She developed the idea, is currently producing the book, and will also release and market the book. Before she started, she couldn’t have done any of this. With guidance and support, she’s growing through the process and stepping into new responsibilities.

Learn more about Vella at https://vellakarman.com/.

Are you interested in becoming an apprentice at The Company? Now is the time to apply. It’s not quite as difficult to be accepted as Vella thought, we’re just looking for people who are all-in for Jesus and who are serious about becoming a professional writer. Learn more and apply here: https://writers.company/training/full-time-apprenticeship/

Make sure that you’re subscribed to The Company’s newsletter so that you never miss an event or update: https://writers.company/subscribe

The post Scary Good – Interview with Vella Karman: second-year apprentice at The Company (Episode 154) appeared first on The Company.

Roald Dahl is a master of effective point-of-view (POV). POV isn’t just an artistic choice, it’s a selection of a particular tool set that will best serve the story you want to tell.

A sloppy story will tax your reader’s suspension of disbelief. Understanding and following the rules of POV will actually give you more freedom to tell the story you want to tell.

Download “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl here: https://kmhs.typepad.com/files/commonlit_lamb-to-the-slaughter_student-1.pdf

“Lamb to the Slaughter” uses a third-person semi-omniscient POV. That wasn’t a random choice or just Dahl’s mood of the day. He chose that POV on purpose because it allowed him to provide and withhold the proper amount of information to achieve the irony and emotional effect he designed.

Want to go deep and learn a lot about POV? Check out chapter 17 of Brad Pauquette’s bestselling book: https://amzn.to/4kSxuy7 (affiliate link)

Brad Pauquette is the author of The Novel Matrix and the director of The Company, a full-time writing and publishing apprenticeship for Christian novelists. If you’d like to jump straight to Brad’s teaching, it begins at approximately 35:00.

Prose Club invites writers into a craft discussion of a classic short story. In the group discussion which begins this session, the participants address:

Sign up for The Company’s newsletter and attend the next Prose Club live: https://writers.company/subscribe/

HELPFUL LINKS:

The post Prose Club: “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl (Episode 153) appeared first on The Company.

Two years ago, Noah J. Matthews was just a normal homeschool kid. He was shy, didn’t have very much experience in the “real” world, and struggled to hear God’s voice.

Today, he’s published a book, served as the managing editor of a literary magazine, and seen his work promoted and shared on social media, blogs, and podcasts.

That’s a big change. In this episode of The Company Podcast, Brad and Noah sit down to talk about how it happened, one small Spirit-led step at a time. In this podcast, Brad and Noah discuss:

Find Outlaw Blood on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4bxvvuU

Learn more about Noah and connect with him on his website: https://noahjmatthews.com/

Want to learn more about becoming an apprentice at The Company? Get started here: https://writers.company/training/full-time-apprenticeship/

The post Noah J. Matthews: Second-year apprentice and author of Outlaw Blood (Episode 152) appeared first on The Company.

I think it would be easy to see what our second-year apprentices do—publish books, release weekly content, be guests on podcasts, launch new projects, share the Gospel—and to think, “Gosh, I could never do that.”

“I could never launch a podcast.”

“I could never write a novel from scratch in ten weeks.”

“I could never be vulnerable in my writing and just put it out there like that.”

Well, they couldn’t either. But they were brave enough to say “yes” to the first step and then keep showing up.

Apprentices grow little by little just like anyone else, but those little steps happen at a much faster rate, because of one word, “Today.”

In this episode, you will learn:

Prefer to read it? Find a similar article on The Company Magazine here: https://writers.company/the-magic-word-for-making-big-progress-fast-with-your-writing/

LINKS:

Learn more about The Company’s writing and publishing apprenticeship: https://writers.company/training/full-time-apprenticeship/

Become a member of The Company: https://writers.company/membership/

The post The magic word to make big writing progress (Episode 151) appeared first on The Company.

If you start your story well, you can get away with a lot later on.

Readers need to be grounded by the setting and the narrative voice. But if you do this effectively, it buys you a lot of liberty in your storytelling later on.

Brad Pauquette, bestselling author of The Novel Matrix, and Alli Prince, author of Top New Release Copper Lies, critiqued four short stories and novel chapters from The Company’s community of writers.

Listen here or watch the full video on YouTube:

In this critique, you’ll find invaluable tips and tricks to make your own writing the best that it can be.

You can download these four stories and read them yourself here: https://writers.company/january-28th-procritique-materials-now-available/

Take the time to read the stories and critique them yourself before you listen. Compare your critique to Brad and Alli’s notes to grow in your ability to articulate issues and opportunities in your own writing.

At this live critique session, we discussed:

Thank you to the brave souls who volunteered their work to be publicly critiqued.

Learn more about our ProCritiques and other events on The Company’s website: https://writers.company/

OTHER LINKS:

The post The Value of a Great Story Opening: January 2025 ProCritique Recording appeared first on The Company.