At The Write Practice, we publish a new article each day designed to help writers tackle one part of their writing journey, from generating ideas to grammar to writing and publishing your first book. Each article has a short practice exercise at the end to help you immediately put your learning to use.
Check out the latest articles below or find ones that match your interest in the sidebar.
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Creative nonfiction is a literary genre of writing that uses fiction techniques and stylistic choices to express real-life experiences. It depends on story elements especially, so everything you’ve learned about structure will serve you well in creative nonfiction.
You might have heard the writing advice, “Don’t write purple prose.” Or perhaps you’ve even been told your prose is purple, but you’re not quite sure what that means and if it’s really a bad thing.
What is purple prose? Is it really bad? And how can you fix it in your writing?
In The Hunger Games, berries play a prominent role. During the game, deadly berries eliminate at least one participant, and Katniss uses the berries to subvert the government’s purpose. But their presence goes beyond this. In fact, there are 56 references to berries of various kinds in the book.These references come at key moments in the plot.
What purpose do the berries serve to merit such a prominent place in the book? They are a motif.
“What’s a motif?” I hear you say. Let’s take a look.
Five act structure is a method of structuring a story that has existed for centuries. But does it work? And more importantly, will it work for your story?
In this article, we will learn the definition of the five act structure, explore its origins, look at popular examples, and talk about whether it’s actually useful as a story structure framework for readers and writers.
Do you love writing but find it hard to be productive when working on your book? Have you tried the Write or Die app to help you stay focused?
Write or Die is a writing app that uses various tools to keep you focused and productive during timed writing sessions.
Not everyone loves restrictions when working on a book, but those who do often find the accountability factor a game changer to actually reaching their word count.
If this is you, but you haven’t found the perfect tool to help with your procrastination pitfalls, Write or Die might be the answer.
It was for me, which I’ll explain more in this post.
Do you want to write but just need a great story idea? Good news! Below are 150 short story ideas for all your favorite genres. You can use them as writing prompts for writing contests, for stories to publish in literary magazines, or just for fun!
Get started writing with one of these short story ideas today.
November is here! It’s a perfect time to dust off your writing journal (the one you got for the holidays last year?) and start exploring some creative writing ideas before the end of the year. Today we have 30 November writing prompts to get you started. Let’s go!
Literature’s first job is to entertain. But at the same time every novel has a kernel of truth in it, or perhaps several kernels, ideas about how life works or philosophies on the best way to live or some gesture to the broader meaning of life.
Taken together, these ideas may combine into a “theme.” Let’s look at the most common themes in literature and why they matter.
Do you love a good murder mystery or thriller? Do you dream of creating a captivating and suspenseful book that will pull readers to the end and leave them tingling? Then you need to master foreshadowing.
If you answered yes, you probably realize that such a thing is no easy task. More than most any other genre, mystery novels, thrillers, and suspense stories invite the reader to actively participate in plot developments, using certain cues to predict outcomes.
That can be tough to accomplish.
The path to a finished product is full of pitfalls, but you can learn techniques to help carry you safely over them and complete a thrilling story you can be proud of.
Does the concept of “theme” confuse you? Do you have trouble writing a theme, or weaving a theme into your story?
If you said yes, you’re not alone. Lots of writers struggle to identify a theme in their book—and many don’t even know what thematic message the are communicating through their story until a second or later draft.
The good news is, there are writing tips you can use when weaving a thematic message (or two) into your story.
