New Daily Writing Guides from The Write Practice

Leslie Malin on Nonfiction Writing and Why Your Ideas Are Worth Sharing

Nonfiction writing seems like a completely different bear than writing fiction. How do you gather your ideas and present them in a coherent, interesting way? And if someone else has written on the same topic before, should you even bother?

In today’s article, Leslie Malin gives us some great insight into how she came around to writing her first nonfiction book and the lessons she had to learn along the way. And she reminds us that writing nonfiction requires some of the same skills as writing fiction: storytelling.

20+ Narrative Essay Prompts

by Sue Weems | 0 Comments

If you’re practicing your personal essay skills or just storytelling in general, these narrative essay prompts are a great way to get started!

How to Write a Personal Narrative Essay

by Sue Weems | 0 Comments

Learning how to write a personal narrative essay is a core skill in most middle and high school writing classes, but narrative essays are great practice for so much more! If you’ve ever wanted to nail an assignment, an interview, or just be a more interesting person, this practice is for you!

7 Types of Nonfiction Books

by Joe Bunting | 6 Comments

While people have been telling stories and delivering speeches for thousands of years, the history of nonfiction book writing is fairly brief. Still, over the last 500 years or so, patterns have begun to emerge, tried and true ways of writing nonfiction books, depending on the author’s goals.
Read on to discover the 7 types of nonfiction books and the structures each uses to reach readers.

How Joining a Writing Community Helped These 11 Authors Get Published

by Joe Bunting | 0 Comments

Getting published is an amazing, exciting process. It can also feel a little mysterious, especially if you’ve never done it before. What does it take to publish? More than that, what does it take to publish successfully—to publish a beautiful piece of writing and share it with crowds of readers?

I recently reached out to several writers in our Write to Publish community to ask whether joining a writing community has helped them get published, grow their audience, and make progress on their journey to becoming bestselling authors.

Should You Write Nonfiction or Fiction?

by Joe Bunting | 113 Comments

In allegiance to Stephen King’s writerly maxim, “The only requirement is the ability to remember every scar,” I’m considering writing a new series of stories about my father’s five year struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrom.

I was ten when my father had to quit work go on disability. His body was hurting all the time and he couldn’t think he was so tired. Ten is an age you need a father, but for five years he was largely absent, both physically and mentally. My mom was preoccupied and stressed bearing our family’s financial burdens. I went through the first, confusing years as a teenager all but alone.

But the question is: should I write the stories from this period of my life as nonfiction or channel them into my fiction?

15 Fun Fall Writing Prompts

by Sue Weems | 87 Comments

Writing prompts are one of the best ways to get in your daily writing practice and hone your writing skills. Whether you’re a parent or teacher trying to help reluctant writers get started or a seasoned pro looking for new ideas, today we have a series of fun fall writing prompts to help you transition from the summer season into the autumn, writing all the way.

Book Club: The Write Way to Analyze a Book

by Sue Weems and Guest Blogger | 0 Comments

If you’re a writer, you’ve likely heard advice that one of the best ways to improve your craft is to read. It’s true! But the way you read matters. How can you read and discuss books with a writer’s eye, so you get more out of the experience?

Anaphora and Epistrophe: Two Rhetorical Devices

by Sue Weems and Liz Bureman | 2 Comments

Last Wednesday through Sunday, I went to Reykjavik with some friends thanks to Groupon. Fortunately, the jet lag hasn’t hit much since coming home, but it was a great weekend. We saw the Northern Lights, we saw waterfalls, we saw geysers, and we saw a place where two tectonic plates meet.

By the way, that last text pattern, with the repetition of “we saw”, is what’s called anaphora.

5 Alternatives to NaNoWriMo

by Emily Wenstrom and Elizabeth Nettleton | 15 Comments

For many writers, November used to be synonymous with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Over thirty days, writers would knuckle down and attempt to write a 50,000 word novel. Just thirty days of work for a complete first draft? Awesome.

Unfortunately, NaNoWriMo has now closed its doors. But don’t worry, NaNoWriMo isn’t the only way to join a community and work toward all your writing goals. Here are five excellent alternatives to help you smash your word count goal before the end of the year.

Here to learn? You’re in the WRITE place!