Hooks & High Stakes: Lessons From the Writer’s Digest Conference

There’s nothing quite like walking into a room packed with people who share the same obsession you do. It feels like finding your tribe. People who understand your quirks, your struggles, and the strange joy of getting lost in a giant pile of manuscripts and craft books.

The obsession I’m referring to is storytelling. I love the craft itself, I love the act of writing (even when I’m cursing my way through writer’s block), I love teaching writing, and I especially love connecting with other writers.

That last part is rare. Like many writers, I spend most of my time alone in front of a screen, tinkering with sentences or diving down research rabbit holes. I don’t often get to hang out with my fellow obsessives. So when I do step out of my little cage to join them, it’s nothing short of electric.

This year, that spark came from the 2025 Writer’s Digest Annual Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, a jam-packed two and a half days of craft, community, and career wisdom that left my notebook full and my brain buzzing. From platform-building tips to one-on-one “ask me anything” sessions with literary agents, from legal insights I’d never considered to craft workshops that had me rethinking entire chapters in my current manuscript, the conference delivered more gems than I could possibly list.

But at its heart? It was about connection: learning face-to-face, recharging creative batteries, and trading ideas with people who speak the same language.

Writer’s conferences remind us that while writing is a solitary act, we don’t have to walk the journey alone. Here are some of the key lessons I took home, ones I hope will enhance your own writing career (along with links to several awesome books):

1. Deconstructing Bestsellers with Jane Cleland

Jane Cleland’s workshop was like putting a novel under a microscope. She broke down recent commercial hits by examining pace, quirks, setting, and the shape of endings. Immersive settings, powerful themes, and rhythmic pacing weren’t accidents; they were intentional design that grounded story and reader alike.

• Immersive Setting: Every bestseller she studied layered detail until readers felt embodied in the world.

• Theme & Ending: In middle grade fiction, bestselling traits include autonomy, belonging, along with endings that are satisfying but open-ended.

• Plotting with TRDs: Plot Twists, Reversals, Heightened Danger strategically sprinkled help maintain reader engagement across pages.

In the meantime, I’m loving on her book Mastering Plot Twists.

2. Crafting the Irresistible Opening with Wanda Morris

Novelist Wanda Morris’ session on openings was a masterclass in signaling competency and enticement from sentence numero uno. An opening line isn’t just a line; it’s a promise. She walked us through how to embed question, character, setting, and tone so deeply into that first breath of text that editors, agents, and readers have no choice but to keep reading.

Check out her latest psychological thrillers All Her Little Secrets and What You Leave Behind.

3. Writing Realistic Fight Scenes with Rob Hart & Carla Hoch

If your stories involve physical conflict (as mine often do in the security/war realm) authenticity matters. In separate workshops, Rob Hart and Carla Hoch broke down the mechanics of fight scenes so they read believably, keep the reader oriented, and avoid the over-the-top “Hollywood” pitfalls.

Rob Hart, author of Assassins Anonymous, reinforced the importance of pacing: fights should be brief but high-impact on the page, and every movement should serve story or character development.

Carla Hoch, an award-winning writer and trained fighter, emphasized that fight scenes are not just choreography; they’re about character. The way someone fights reveals their training, emotional state, and physical limitations. She covered everything from realistic injury timelines to how adrenaline changes perception.

I left that session so inspired (and so aware of how much I didn’t know) that I immediately bought Hoch’s book with this great title: Fight Write. It’s already reshaping how I approach high-stakes scenes in my coming-of-age novel set in Afghanistan.

4. Sensory Richness and Specificity with Don Vaughan

Don Vaughan showed how facts and sensory detail elevate nonfiction from flat reporting to magnetic storytelling. Specificity—like scent, color, texture, and exact dates—grounds scenes in the reader’s imagination, making them feel vivid and true. He referenced authors like Susan Orlean and Nathaniel Philbrick as masters of this technique.

5. Start Small, Keep Going: Daily Writing with J.D. Barker & Jean Kwok

International bestseller and co-author with James Patterson, J.D. Barker shared his tips for writing most efficiently and effectively, emphasizing a deceptively simple but powerful truth: starting is the hardest part, and once you do, continuing becomes easier. Science backs this up: writing daily, even minimally, establishes flow, grows confidence, and keeps the story alive in your mind, rather than fading between longer hiatuses.

Barker also spoke about the importance of inviting trusted beta readers into the process early and often; not just for spotting plot holes or typos, but for gauging pacing, emotional resonance, and clarity. He treats feedback like a tool to sharpen the story, never a threat to his voice. And when it comes time to launch a book, he stressed the need to think as strategically as any entrepreneur: leveraging multiple marketing and distribution channels, from traditional publishing networks to podcasts, newsletters, and indie platforms, ensuring the book reaches readers wherever they are.

Jean Kwok, the conference’s keynote speaker and bestselling author of Girl in Translation and Searching for Sylvie Lee, offered a complementary piece of wisdom: focus on the craft first and foremost. In a world where reviews, rankings, and online criticism can easily hijack your attention, she urged writers to ground themselves in the work—writing the best, truest stories they can—because that’s the one part of the publishing process a writer can fully control.

From left to right: (1) Writer’s Digest Editor in Chief Amy Jones; (2) Just a few new writer friends; (3) Editor whiz and author of ‘Intuitive Editing’ Tiffany Yates Martin

6. Writers in Company: Sharing Hard-Earned Knowledge

Each evening after the day’s sessions wrapped, clusters of writers gathered over coffee and snacks to talk shop. They came from every background, genre, and stage of their career you could imagine, yet the conversations felt instantly familiar. At round tables, we swapped manuscript woes, traded query advice, hashed out platform questions, and even dove into the occasional legal dilemma. My favorite moments were when someone would share a tricky scene or story structure problem, and the whole table would light up—offering ideas, poking at possibilities, and collectively untangling the knots of a work-in-progress.

Writing can be hard, and the path is often unpredictable. That’s why it helps to have a “refresh button” like the Writer’s Digest Conference, a place that offers everything from new creative techniques and craft insights to the legal and marketing side of writing.

At the end of the day, even the most intrepid writer needs the occasional reboot. Sometimes the best power source is the company of other writers.

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About Jessica Lauren Walton: Jessica is a communications strategist, video producer, and writer in the U.S. defense sector. She has written articles on a range of security and mental health topics and conducted interviews with military leadership, CIA officers, law enforcement, psychologists, filmmakers, and more. Read her full bio here.

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