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.
And make sure to subscribe to get a weekly digest of our latest posts, along with our free guide, 10 Steps to Become a Writer.
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.
Writers write to get a reaction out of their readers. No matter the genre, you want your reader to feel something when they read your writing.
For horror writers, that feeling is fear. But it’s also so much more than that.
Great horror stories take the everyday creepy and turn it into something even more creepy (and often become a condemnation of injustices in society). And then, the great thing is, horror stories teach you that those creepy things can be beaten. That’s what keeps bringing the readers back.
And that’s why horror writers keep churning out the fear.
Maybe you love writing scary stories. Maybe you don’t, but this is something you’d like to take a whack at, just for practice (we’re fans about that around here!).
Just like reading outside your genre is valuable to mastering the writing craft, so is writing a scary story.
This story doesn’t have to be long, it could be a short story. Try for something you can write in one sitting, like 1,500 words.
To get you started, use one of the Halloween writing prompts suggested in this article. Then let loose, and have fun!
Interviews are far more than a tool for a hiring process. For writers, interviews produce ideas, voice, and more. But in an interview, you want to have a conversation, not an interrogation. A good interviewer makes their interviewee comfortable.
What is chiasmus?
We generally think of chiasmus as occurring at the sentence level, and this is where the figure of speech (and rhetorical device) is most obvious. However, chiasmus can be achieved over the course of a paragraph.
Let’s look at a definition and some examples.
We’ve seen movies and read books. We know the protagonist when we see her. However, as I mentor and edit authors, I’ve had more and more writers ask me the big question: “Can you have multiple main characters in a story?”
Yes, you can. But should you?
Are you trying to write faster? Writing a scene outline might be exactly what you need. But what is a scene outline, and how you can create one that help direct your story while giving you creative freedom?
A scene outline can give your story plan focus and prevent burnout or confusion when actually writing your story.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a scene list that gives your big story idea focus, which will help you not only write faster, but give you a higher chance of actually finishing your book—and having fun while you write it!
Being an indie author comes with its pros and cons. For me, I enjoy having control over the process from start to finish. One of the disadvantages of self-publishing is you do not own your customer list when people buy your book from Amazon or another online retailer.
That means you and your book are at the mercy of the retailer to market to potential readers. The ‘zon is not going to hand over their customer list to you. You have to build your own list, and BookFunnel can help.
Genre matters, and by understanding how genre works, you not only can find more things you want to read, you can also better understand what the writer (or publisher) is trying to do.
In this post, you’ll learn the three best techniques to find weak verbs in your writing and replace them with strong ones. We’ll also look at a list of the strongest verbs for each type of writing, including the strongest verbs to use.
I’m a firm believer in Halloween. But I know all the gore and scary movies aren’t for everyone, especially little kids.
Halloween is for everyone, though! There’s so much more to the celebration than jump scares and fake blood. And I think we all need a little lightheartedness this year.
Have your kids try one of these writing prompts (or try one yourself)!
