New Daily Writing Guides from The Write Practice

How to Revise a Novel: A Revision List to Edit With Confidence

Finishing a first draft is a huge deal. If you just accomplished this, be proud of yourself! At the same time, you might be wondering how to revise a novel after that first draft is done. There’s a lot of advice out there. Which do you listen to?

The revision process doesn’t have to be complicated. However, you might feel—especially if this is your first completed draft ever—intimidated to edit your book. There’s a lot of words and scenes to review. Where do you begin?

In this article, I’d like to share how I took a daunting editing process and created a simplified, concise, and clear strategy to revising your first draft. I do this with what I call a Revision List—a table with five columns that can help you simplify big ideas.

If you’re like me, you won’t ever want to edit a first draft without it!

Freytag’s Pyramid: Examples of the 5 Elements for this Classic Narrative Structure

by Joe Bunting | 0 Comments

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.

Adventure Book Ideas: 20 Prompts for Survival and Adventure Stories

by Sue Weems | 0 Comments

Adventure stories are built around the life versus death value, meaning that the main conflict and most of the scenes turn on survival. The adventure genre can be set in real life or include an exciting adventure in a fantasy world or other far-flung places most readers will never visit.
Today let’s look at more than 20 adventure story idea prompts to get your own story on its way!

How to Write an Adventure Story

by David Safford | 0 Comments

In this story type, the hero and their comrades are attempting to thwart death in the face of an overwhelming physical obstacle, usually in the form of a figure of nature.

This isn’t to say that an adventure story can’t have a villain. However, the primary threats will always come in physical form, forcing the characters to dig deep and find the strength and resolve to endure.

Book Writing Software (2025): Top 10 for Writers

by Joe Bunting | 30 Comments

Writing a book is hard. I’ve written seven books and at some point during each one I had the thought, “There has to be a tool, a piece of book writing software, that would make this easier.”

Bad news/good news: writing a book will always be hard, and the best piece of writing software in the world won’t write your book for you. But the good news is there is book writing software that can make the process a little easier.

In this post, we will cover the ten best pieces of software for writing a book and look at the pros and cons of each.

First Draft Definition: Key Differences Between First and Second Drafts

by Callie Sutcliffe | 0 Comments

Have you ever wondered which draft you are working on? Do you wonder what the difference is between your first draft, your second draft, and editing your book? You can learn the first draft definition and the differences between drafts in this article.

When writing multiple drafts of a book, you may be halfway through your rough draft and decide to start over. Or you may have written the entire manuscript, but then wish to scrap it and start fresh.

And when considering this, you question: “Am I writing a first draft? Am I editing my novel?”

What does “first draft” mean—or “second draft,” for that matter?

Knowing the differences between first drafts, second drafts, and editing your book will elevate your ability to tackle the writing and editing process. It will help you understand what to focus on when you’re writing—and have fun while you do it!

How to Market a Book: 10 First Steps

by Joe Bunting | 1 Comment

Have you ever wonder how to market a book? You spend months, maybe even years writing, editing, then rewriting your book until it’s a masterpiece (or at least finished). Now what? How do you turn all that hard work into sales and, if it’s not too much to ask, money!

There are hundreds of things to discuss when it comes to how to market a book, but what are the first steps you need to take, if you’re starting from scratch? That’s what were going to talk about in this article. Ready to get started?

6 Revealing Character Writing Prompts

by Ruthanne Reid | 6 Comments

Here’s the underlying principle: your characters are people. People are complicated; I suspect you might know a few. Characters are much the same way. Your reader will relate to them if they behave like people, and for characters to behave like people, they need to be built like people.

You need to know your characters like you do other humans, and these six prompts will help you pull that off.

Aaron Sorkin MasterClass Review: Will This Help You Master Screenwriting?

by Brendan Hufford | 0 Comments

I’m always looking for new opportunities to improve my writing. As an author and businessman, learning and improving the tools that keep me in business are a high priority on my daily list of to-dos. After all, if you’re not growing, you’re stagnating. And no one can afford to be stagnant in the business of writing.

MasterClass offers a cool opportunity to take online courses from masters in their fields. Is it worth it? Specifically, is Aaron Sorkin’s screenwriting class worth it? And will it help you?

The Secret to Creating Conflict

by Joe Bunting | 59 Comments

We often think that to create conflict we need to show spectacular events. For example, a car chase, an argument between lovers, a fistfight, or the threat of a nuclear explosion. Or we think of conflict as some kind of internal suffering: depression, longing, or pain.

But the truth is that if events and emotions were the only elements of conflict in our stories, we’d have some pretty flat stories.

Conflict, in good stories, is not about spectacular events or painful emotions. Good conflict is about values.

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