Seasoned Writing Coach David Cornue Releases "Stop Writing!", a Story-Development Guide for Writers at a Crossroads

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Sep 01, 2026, 10:22 ET

Master story development before you write a word. The debut book distills more than a decade of professional coaching into a repeatable method for screenwriters, novelists, and storytellers everywhere. On Amazon September 1, in wide release September 15, with an author-narrated audiobook October 1.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Writer, producer, and story coach David Cornue today announced the launch of Stop Writing!, a story-development guide whose title doubles as its central instruction. Published by Every Story Press, the book reaches Amazon on September 1, expands to all major retailers on September 15, and arrives as an author-narrated audiobook on October 1. Its subtitle states the promise plainly: master story development before you write a word.

The book targets a habit Cornue has watched derail writers for years: starting a draft before the story is ready. "Just stop. Stop going to a blank page and writing yourself in circles. Stop thinking that you'll figure it out along the way," he writes in the opening pages. His argument is that most stalled drafts and painful late-stage rewrites trace back to a single misstep, beginning too soon, and that the time a writer spends developing a story first is what separates a finished work from an abandoned one.

Stop Writing! offers a full method rather than a pep talk. It moves through four parts: Envision, Engineer, Execute, and a closing section called Start Writing!, guiding a writer from raw idea to a story ready for the page. Along the way, it introduces the practical instruments Cornue uses with his own clients, among them the Story Catcher, the Logliner, the Story Rater, a Character Creator built on twelve archetypes, and the Story Mapper. Each chapter turns an abstract stage of development into concrete, repeatable steps. The reward, as Cornue puts it in the book, is the moment "when you're ready to write, the story writes itself."

The method carries the authority of a working coaching practice. David Cornue has helped hundreds of writers land representation at top agencies, staff Emmy-winning shows, and sell scripts to major studios, and the book distills that experience into a form any writer can follow. "For years, this method lived only in my workshops and private sessions," said Cornue. "Stop Writing! is my attempt to hand it to every writer who has ever felt stuck, no matter where they are or who they know."

Stop Writing! is written for working and emerging storytellers alike: screenwriters, novelists, television writers, and anyone who has abandoned a promising idea in a drawer of unfinished drafts. Cornue built the method over a decade of coaching professional writers, and the book's tools are drawn directly from that practice. More of his craft essays and launch notes appear on his newsletter, Stop Writing! on Substack.

Availability

Amazon (early access): September 1, 2026

Wide release: September 15, 2026

Audiobook: October 1, 2026

Published by Every Story Press, the book is available in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook. The companion software is available now with a free tier at stopwriting.com.

About David Cornue

David Cornue is a writer, producer, composer, and story coach. He served as Executive Producer of COACH with Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia on ESPN+, and created, wrote, and executive-produced the ABC/20th Television medical drama TRIAGE, working with showrunner Erica Messer (Criminal Minds) and director Jon M. Chu (Wicked). He is developing a television adaptation of Stephen King's Insomnia with Rideback. Cornue wrote, produced, and scored the pilot Unspeakable, which premiered at SXSW and won Best Pilot at multiple festivals. A member of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's inaugural Imagine Impact class and the Fox Writers Lab, he has written and produced for ABC, FOX, A&E, and USA Network. In 2024, he co-founded Every Story as CEO. Find him on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and X, or at davidcornue.com.