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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By the end of this post you will be using an excel spreadsheet.
Don’t make that face—I know you’re a writer and not a data analyst. Or if you are a data analyst—I understand that you’re on this blog to get away from you day job. I get it. But guess what? At the suggestion of Randy Ingermason—the creator of the Snowflake Method— I listed all of the scenes in my novel in a nice little Google spreadsheet. It changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too.
Euphemistic language is everywhere in polite society, used to speak and write sensitively about taboo subjects or to tackle difficult situations.
Parents sometimes refer to “the birds and the bees” as a euphemism for sex when speaking to their kids.
Euphemisms can make it both easier and harder to talk about uncomfortable topics, so they can be used in interesting ways in literature.
Many fantasy writers love world building—sketching out maps, cataloguing pantheons, and crafting magic systems. But when it’s time to write a story set in that world, they often struggle to translate their fantasy worldbuilding lore into narrative. This is understandable. After all, how do you fit an entire world into a book—and tell a compelling story at the same time? The answer, paradoxically, is to start small.
You want to write a book. Maybe you have a great story idea. Maybe you have a big idea you want to share with the world. Maybe people have told you, “Your life should be made into a book!” But first, you have to learn how to write a book.
The problem for the first-time author is figuring out how to get started. What are the writing habits you need to finish the actual writing for an entire book? And what comes next: traditional publishing? Self-publishing? Becoming a New York Times bestselling book?
Because after coaching thousands of writers to write and finish their books, and also writing fifteen books of my own, I know exactly how much hard work it takes to finish a book.
It’s not enough to want to write, you need to know how to write a book.
You need to have the right process. The write process, you might say (sorry, I had to!).
In this guide, we’re going to learn everything about how to write a nonfiction book, from how to defeat procrastination and find writing time, all the way to revising and the editing process—and even to the publishing process.
If you’ve ever wanted to write a book, whether a memoir, a big idea book, or a self help book, you’re in the right place.
If, on the other hand, you’re a fiction writer and have a main character who you know is going to take the world by storm, we have a complete guide on novel writing here. For you nonfiction writers, though, read on for all our best writing tips.
Here are 30 June writing prompts from journal prompts to story starters to skill building prompts. Try one and keep your writing sharp this summer.
Whether you’re self publishing or you have a traditional publisher, it’s up to you to sell your books. Email marketing is the number one way to sell books. But in order to use email marketing effectively, you first have to gather a list of email addresses, a group of readers who want to hear from you.
Struggling to build your list? Try this.
I’m sure this never happens to you, but there are times when I don’t feel very creative. We just had a new baby, our second, bought a house, our first, and are now busy managing a thousand new details. All the busywork and bill paying leaves me feeling pretty dry.
But no matter how un-creative I’m feeling, there’s one creative writing exercise that never fails to fire up my writing.
Have you heard the term pantser before? When it comes to plot structure are you one?
There are all types of writers, but  most writers fall into one of the three categories: pantser, plotter, or planster (a combination of the two).
While there’s no (necessarily) right or wrong way to approaching structure, writers who fall into their certain category do so with pride.
Today, let’s talk about what kind of writer a pantser is. Maybe you’ll even discover the kind of writer you are—possibly someone who writes by the seat of your pants, or someone who takes a general idea and writers pages of background and structure before moving forward.
Let’s find out!
What if you could begin your novel without the fear of failing? What if you had a process so foolproof, you knew you would finish no matter what? The zombie apocalypse could finally strike and you’d still finish writing your novel.
The good news is you’ve found the write place (sorry, bad habit).
It’s your dream to publish and sell a book. Thankfully, there’s never been a better time to do it, as all the tools you could possibly require are at your fingertips. And the best news is that many of them don’t cost a penny, allowing you to publish, market, and sell your book for free! All you have to do is figure out how to sell books.
Of course, what you don’t pay in cash you will be paying in gumption. As with any publishing route, there are pros and cons to using mostly free resources, and I’ll illustrate those as we go so hopefully you can avoid some of the mistakes I made in my own free publishing journey.
