What do your characters believe in so strongly, they’re willing to die for it? What are you willing to die for?

For most of us, this isn’t a question we’re faced with every day. But Hamody Jasim was in his teens when he realized that fighting for what he believed probably meant dying for it—and he chose to enter the fight anyway. In this episode of Character Test, I talk with Hamody about some of the highest-stakes choices of his life and how he came to make them.

Do you want to write a book? Is 2020 the year you finally accomplish your dream?

A new year is a time for fresh starts and audacious goals. And if your goal this year is to write your book, you’re not alone. One year is the perfect length of time to write and publish a book, as long as you know the right steps.

The best way to become a better writer is to write and then to publish your writing, whether you publish it on a blog, in a book, or with a close friend. It’s only by practicing writing, and getting feedback on it, that you can improve.

That being said, it never hurts to learn from those who have gone before you, and over the years, we’ve compiled a lot of excellent advice from the best writers on how to become a better writer.

Characters are the heart of any story. There are plenty of methods out there to help your character development. But when it’s time to give your characters shape and definition, don’t waste time on extensive questionnaires that get you weighed down in details.

Most great stories, whether they are a Pixar film or a novel by your favorite author, follow a certain dramatic structure.

When you’re getting started with writing, understanding how the structure works is difficult. Even if you go back and analyze your favorite books and films, it can still be hard to structure your own stories. That’s where Freytag’s Pyramid can help.

How do you tell a story? Not how do you construct a story, or how do you structure and plot a story? How do you tell a story?

When I think about storytelling at its most basic, I think about our earliest ancestors, sitting around a campfire, sharing stories about their lives, the adventures they’ve been part of, and the history of their people.

This is what narrative devices are about, how you tell the story, and if you’re a writer, the method and perspective of your storytelling is something you must consider.

In this article, we’re going to talk about narrative devices, what they are, the different types found in the best books, plays, films, and serials, and how to use them to tell a powerful story.

If you’re reading this, you have goals. Maybe you have fitness goals or goals for your family. Maybe you even have writing goals.

But how do you write goals that actually work, that actually help you accomplish the things that you set out to do?

In this post, I’ll share my comprehensive goal writing process, the same process that has helped me finish twelve books, publish over 2,000 blog posts, and reach over twenty million people with my writing over the last eight years.

Have you ever known someone who just made you feel crazy? Like the normal rules of conversation—and especially conflict—don’t apply? Or have the characters in your stories ever felt that way, surrounded by drama they don’t know how to navigate?

Statistically speaking, 16% of people have a personality disorder. But what is a personality disorder? And how can you improve your character development by learning about them?

You know you’ve seen it at the end of a book, but what does it mean? What is an epilogue actually? Why not just call it, “Last Chapter?” Who thought up this word, “Epilogue,” anyway? And if you’re a writer, should you end you’re book with an epilogue?

I woke up this morning to a deluge of emails about Black Friday offers, which I inevitably greet first with suspicion and cynicism, then vague interest, then a growing realization that, hey, some of these are actually really good deals! 

At The Write Practice, we have long been tracking the best tools for writers and writing software. The cool thing is that today a lot of those tools are steeply discounted. Here are some of the deals I spotted today.

How do you write beautiful, award-worthy books and short stories?

One of the best ways is to join an online writing workshop, a collection of other writers who can give your writing feedback so that you can make your chapters, stories, and ultimately books better.

And the best online writing workshop, in my opinion, is The Write Practice Pro. What is The Write Practice Pro, and how can it help you finish your books, get published, and become an award winning, bestselling author? In this post, I’ll be sharing my Write Practice Pro review. I’ll also talk about how I personally use it the writing tool.

Since 2011, we’ve been helping writers publish their books and accomplish their writing goals. We’ve worked with thousands of writers through our community and courses. But this year, we wanted to take a step back and ask, is what we’re doing actually making a difference? Are we actually helping writers achieve their dreams?

And so we went back to our students and asked, what did you accomplish in 2019? What books did you publish, and what role did The Write Practice play in helping you?

The responses were inspiring. Here’s what our authors have published in the last year.

How do you write beautiful, award-winning novels, memoirs, and short stories? One tried-and-true way is through a writing workshop, a program with other writers who can give encouragement, feedback, and support as you write, edit, and publish your writing.

In this post, I’m going to share what a creative writing workshop is and how you can use it to improve your writing habits, get feedback on your creative writing, and go on to publish award-winning writing. Then we’ll talk about how to find a writing workshop, whether online or locally, and how to get the most out of it.

If you’ve ever told a good story—one that has your friends or family on the floor laughing, or else on the edge of their seat asking, “What happened next?!”—then you know that you can’t get to the point of the story too quickly.

Instead, you draw out interest. You talk about all the things that went wrong. You make jokes and accentuate the best details. When you’re done, it’s not the punchline people remember; it’s everything leading up to it.

The same is true when you’re writing a story, particularly in novels, memoirs, and screenplays. It’s called the Rising Action, and it’s essential to get it right IF you want to write entertaining, informative, and deeply connecting stories.

In this article, I’m going to talk about the rising action: what it is, how it works in a story, how it’s been treated by scholars who study story structure throughout history, and finally how you can use it to write a great story.

Want to write a memoir but not sure how to get started? I’ve got you covered. In this post, I’m sharing my ten best creative writing prompts for memoir writers.

How do you become a better creative writer? That was the question I was facing in my own life more than ten years ago. I wanted to be a writer, was even writing part-time for a local magazine, but I didn’t know how to make my dreams of becoming a professional writer happen.

Five years later, I had finally made it, and now, five years after that, I’m earning over $100k from my writing.

How did I do it? It took so many things, but one of the first, and most important, was travel.

In fact, I believe every writer should travel. In this post, I’ll explain why. But I don’t want you to just take my word for it. No, I actually want to send you on a trip to Paris, one of my favorite writing destinations, on me.

One of the beautiful things about creative work is that in many ways, there’s no formal training required. You can write the first pages, even the first chapters, of a book without ever getting an English degree or spending years training with great writers.

But what about when that doesn’t work anymore? When you find yourself in over your head with absolutely no idea what you’re doing or where to go next—what then?

You’ve heard the classic writing rule, “Show. Don’t Tell.” Every writing blog ever has talked about it, and for good reason. Showing, for some reason, is really difficult.

Telling is one of the hardest habits to eradicate from your style. I still struggle with it regularly. However, writing that shows is so much more interesting than writing that tells that it’s worth doing the work.

And the good news is that it’s pretty easy to show if you just learn this one trick.

What does it take to write a memoir? Not just any memoir—a great memoir, one that people love and talk about and share with their friends?

In this guide, I want to talk about how you can start writing your memoir, how you can actually finish it, and how you can make sure it’s good.

If you read this article from start to finish, it will save you hundreds of hours and result in a much better finished memoir.