New Daily Writing Guides from The Write Practice

How to Write Description that Will Delight Your Readers’ Senses

Many writers say they struggle most with appealing to one’s sense of smell, yet studies say our strongest memories are linked to specific scents.

The most beloved and engaging books are descriptive-rich, engaging all our senses as we move through the story. As writers, we usually have our favorite sense, finding it easy to paint compelling visuals while potentially ignoring, for example, the kinesthetics among us.

To create a full, engaging experience for our readers, however, we must write to delight all five of the senses: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Neglect one or several senses and a story becomes flat, one-dimensional and sadly cast aside.

If you’d like to better write to all five senses, here are my three tips:

What Is Experimental Fiction About?

by Sophie Novak | 38 Comments

What is experimental fiction? And how can you incorporate lessons from the genre into your own writing?

Choosing among the multiple attempts to define it and trying to keep it short and simple, let’s just say that experimental fiction is about breaking the rules, skipping conventions, literary innovation, and uniqueness.

Innovation comes only by trying out new things – experimenting – since progress in any field is a result of reaching out to what was once considered impossible. In this sense, experimental fiction is truly revolutionary.

5 Tips to Create a Writer’s Group that Lasts

by Emily Wenstrom | 20 Comments

Participating in a writer’s group can make a big difference, helping you improve your skills and giving the support of a community. But despite the benefits, it can be hard to get a group to stick it out for the long haul. People run out of work to submit, or something in the group dynamics doesn’t mesh, or one by one your members start slipping away like you’re in an Agatha Christie novel.

But it doesn’t have to get that way.

5 Tips for Creating a Must-Read Fiction Series

by Guest Blogger | 30 Comments

Creating a novel series—such as the Harry Potter, Dune, The Wheel of Time, or even Border Trilogy series—is one of the best ways to build continuous momentum with your book marketing efforts. It’s also a unique experience and can open up life opportunities you may never have had otherwise.

However, creating a novel series can also take years if not decades of effort. How do you even get started?

The following are my top five tips for creating a must-read fiction series.

How To Write A Book…FAST

by Carlos Cooper | 50 Comments

Time is relative, especially in a writer’s world. It’s easy for any one of us to get sucked into some shiny rabbit hole. We lose time like it’s cool.

We spend time being ‘busy’. Busy marketing on social media. Busy networking with fellow writers. Busy submitting manuscripts to publishers.

You know what we forget? We’re writers. We need to write!

What Clothes Say About Your Characters

by The Magic Violinist | 67 Comments

When you get up and get dressed for the day, why do you pick out the clothes that you do? Are you looking for comfortable clothes to fully enjoy your lazy Saturday? Are you attempting to look professional in your work uniform? Maybe you never even change out of your pajamas.

Showing what your characters are wearing can be a great way to show your readers what they might be up to that day without having to actually narrate anything.

Here are five examples….

What Do You Do When You Hate ALL Your Ideas?

by Joe Bunting | 17 Comments

Yesterday, I quit the story I was working on. I tried to start something new but then hated the new idea and quit it, too.

I go through these periods every once in a while when I hate all my writing ideas. Even writing this post was hard. Every sentence I wrote, I hated. Has this ever happened to you? How do you handle it?

What do you do when you hate your writing?

How to Tell a Story With Just One Character

by Liz Bureman | 29 Comments

I have a couple of guy friends who live together who are Star Wars fans. Calling them fans is actually an understatement.

The Star Wars canon follows the theme of last week with a truckload of characters. But what happens when you take the complete opposite approach, and pare down your cast of characters to one person?

Have You Found Your Writing Voice?

by Joe Bunting | 116 Comments

I asked Ted Dekker how long it takes for an author to find their voice.

“It takes four to five novels,” he said. So if the average novel is about 80,000 words, then you have to write 320,000 to 400,000 words before you find your voice.

4 Motivations of Traitors

by Guest Blogger | 8 Comments

“Curse Your Sudden Yet Inevitable Betrayal!”

Sometimes the characters that we think are good guys turn out to be bad guys. How do you create believable traitors?

In The Lord Of The Rings, Saruman was Gandolf’s friend and mentor, the wizard that he trusted most. In The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo turns to his old friend Lando Calrissian.

Many dramatic scenes in fiction begin when the hero realizes too late that a trusted friend is actually working for the other side. As writers, we create all kinds of characters, good guys, bad guys, innocent bystanders. Creating characters that end up turning on their friends, however, has some particular challenges.