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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Whether you’re writing a novel, a memoir, or even painting a portrait, it’s important to understand who you’re writing about.
Creating a character portrait is a characterization technique used by writers like Cheryl Strayed, Marcel Proust, and others to better understand your characters.
In this post, you’ll learn exactly what character portraits, how to create one of your own, and how to get the most out of them in your writing.
An antihero is a central character in a story who displays unheroic flaws or characteristics associated with villains, but who may garner more empathy and understanding as they can appear more human and relatable than traditional heroes.
Take a look at our list of over 75 antihero examples to see if you want to create one for your story today.
According to Merriam-Webster, a colloquialism is “a colloquial expression.” Wasn’t that helpful?
When we look up “colloquial,” we learn that it means, “used in or characteristic of familiar and informal conversation.”
So, a colloquialism is an expression used in or characteristic of casual speech. It can also be a local or regional dialect expression. This is critically important to understand as you write dialogue for characters.
Learning to write a romance or love story plot is a valuable skill for every writer, and not just on Valentine’s Day! Why? Romance is one of the most common subplots across all genres. Let’s look at how to write a love story and then dive into some prompts!
When I sign up for a writing contest, I turn on “Eye of the Tiger” as I sit down to pound out my first draft. This is it, I tell myself. This will be the story that finally wins. A few finger exercises and I am ready to write the story to end all stories.
But what if nothing comes? Or worse, a story pours out and it’s terrible? What if I don’t win? How can I develop a winning mindset without reading an entire shelf of self-help books and further distracting myself?
Whether you’re a student analyzing a story or a writer intent on crafting a compelling story, there are a few basic story elements that will help you better understand the parts of a story.
When you want to give ownership of something to everyone, how do you write it? Everyone’s vs everyones’? And why does this word give everyone so much trouble? Let’s find out.
You are writing your story, and the words are flowing. You're in the groove. Wait. Or is that "your"? Now you've stopped writing and started pondering. It seems you do this a lot. Or alot. Or allot. AGH! English spelling is so nerve-racking. Or is that nerve-wracking?...
When selling a book, you literally have a few seconds to catch your potential reader’s eye. There is no better way to do it than with a striking cover. As an indie author, you have the creative freedom to design it how you love. But what should the cover look like to be the best marketing tool?
Have you ever fantasized about writing a Hollywood movie? Or maybe, with a bit of luck, create the next Lost.
In a visual age, with the decline of traditional publishing, some look to writing screenplays as a way to create the “literature of the future.”
But what is the process to write a screenplay? How do you even begin? And how is it different or similar to writing a novel? In this post we’re going to look at the five step process professional screenwriters use.