Hi, I'm Margaret.
For more than thirty years, I’ve sat across from writers at every stage of the journey – some brand new to the page, others deep in the messy middle of a book they’ve been carrying around for a decade. My path wound through Hollywood story departments and literary editing rooms before it ever became a coaching practice, and that mix still shapes how I work today: a trained eye for structure, paired with genuine care for the sometimes messy, always personal business of getting a true story down on paper.
From Hollywood sets to the writing desk
Before coaching became my full-time work, I spent years reading, developing, and shaping scripts inside studio story departments, then moved into literary editing, working closely with novelists and memoirists on the page. Those two worlds taught me the same lesson from different angles: readers forgive almost anything except a story that doesn’t know where it’s going. These days I bring that same structural thinking to every class and one-on-one session, whether we’re outlining a beat sheet for a feature or untangling the arc of a first novel.
Structure and heart. Both matter.
I believe every story, however tangled it feels in the drafting, has a shape underneath it waiting to be found. My job is to help you see that shape clearly: where a scene is doing too much work, where the character’s arc goes quiet, where the ending needs to earn its keep. But craft alone isn’t the whole job. Writing can be lonely, and it can stir up doubt that has nothing to do with talent. I try to build classes and sessions where structure and encouragement sit side by side, so the work stays rigorous without losing its joy.