New Daily Writing Guides from The Write Practice

Plot Treatment: 4 Simple Steps to Plan A Story’s Second Draft

First drafts are ugly, as they’re intended to be. Frankly, if your first draft isn’t full of run-on sentences, plot holes, and poorly developed characters, you might be doing something wrong. With the hardest part done, you turn to your second draft—but how do you write a second draft?

To start, you need to write a plot treatment.

The second draft is where your story really comes together. This is where you figure out everything that didn’t work in the first draft and fix it—or treat it. I like the word treat because it looks at the first draft as a patient—it’s not bad, it’s just unwell and needs you to play story doctor and make it better.

Thankfully, the process to improve your story and build a solid foundation for your second draft doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be done easily with a plot treatment.

In this article, you’ll learn what a plot treatment is, and why writing a plot treatment can help guide your second draft.

Your First Writing Practice

by Joe Bunting | 782 Comments

Anyone can write for fifteen minutes a day. But imagine how fifteen minutes of creative writing each day could change your life. I

Fifteen minutes a day, and I can turn you from an aspiring writer to a daily writer.

How does it work?

Publishing Classes: Foundations of Publishing Started My Writing Career

by J. D. Edwin | 0 Comments

So you’ve finished your book. Have you been looking at publishing classes to figure out how to bring your story into the world? I did years ago.

It was 2013.

MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech was turning fifty, I had just switched from a very toxic day job to a much more peaceful one, and I had become determined to take my writing career a little more seriously. I researched publishing classes on how to publish, and landed upon the Foundations of Publishing program (then called Write to Publish).

It’s worth mentioning that I went into this program with the utmost confidence.

I had self-published a book the year before, and although it only sold a meager eleven copies, I was convinced that the only issue with it was that I didn’t know how to market, and that if I had just learned the “trick” to attracting an agent or publisher, I would surely become an instant success.

And so I signed up, prepared myself, and thought for certain that I was only weeks away from becoming a best-selling writer.

Are Memoirs Nonfiction: Important Rules of Memoir Writing

by Joe Bunting | 1 Comment

Are you writing a memoir or novel? Are memoirs nonfiction? Or is there a difference?

How to Write a Hook by Thrilling Your Reader With Danger

by Joslyn Chase | 0 Comments

If you want your readers to not just pick up your book, but keep turning the pages, you need to learn how to write a hook that will draw them through the story so they never want to put it down. Try baiting your hooks with the thrill of danger to keep your readers on the line.

10 Painless Steps to Writing a Blog Post that Connects with Your Readers

by Joe Bunting | 22 Comments

Yes, we’d all like more traffic, more comments, more readers on our blogs. But if you’re writing a blog, there’s one thing you want even more than readers. You might not admit that you want this. You might not even realize it! But it’s that emptiness you feel every time you’re disappointed after checking your blog stats. What is it?

From Amateur Blog to Pro Blog: How to Level Up Your Writing

by Joe Bunting | 40 Comments

When I first started blogging, I set up a free account with Blogger. It was great. I didn’t have to understand any crazy computer code. I just had to worry about writing. Then, I read somewhere that I should install Google Analytics to see how many people were reading my blog. It took me an hour, but I figured out how to insert the hieroglyphic-looking code into my theme and opened up my analytics page.

I found out there were about seven people reading my blog. That’s it? I thought. That started me on a quest to figure out how to get more people to read my blog.

Plot and Structure: How to Use Structure and Subplot to Add Suspense

by Joslyn Chase | 22 Comments

You can’t write a great story if you don’t master plot and structure. But what is the best structure for a novel? How do you plot a novel?

Figuring out your plot and structure is essential for your story’s success. Even if you have an exciting idea for a story, great characters, and a memorable setting, you need to put your protagonist through events that have high and escalating stakes.

Without a sound plot and structure, you won’t thrill your readers. Today, we’ll look at story structure and learn how you can build an effective plan for a story packed with suspense, with all the right twists in all the right places.

How to Accomplish Twice the Writing in Half the Time

by Guest Blogger | 64 Comments

Many writers struggle with time management, but I’ve taken this dilemma to a whole, new level. In this post I want to talk about how I’ve learned to accomplish twice the writing in half the time.

Some writers have a set schedule. They work the same time every day.

Lucky them.

Others, do not. They sneak in their pages through tiny chunks of time — five minutes here, another 15 minutes there.

Nothing wrong with that, either. Just try to be consistent.

Here’s an interesting fact I’ve recently discovered about myself. In talking to others, they’ve admitted they do this, too…

5 Christmas Writing Prompts to Tickle Your Holiday Spirit

by Abigail Perry | 0 Comments

It’s Christmas Eve! The Write Practice will be taking a brief break from the blog for the next week, but in the meantime we’d love to inspire your writing this holiday season with some Christmas writing prompts.

Maybe you’re looking for some creative writing activities for the last day of school before winter break. Or you’re craving a handful of creative writing prompts that will also get you into the festive mood. Either way, these holiday-themed writing prompts are for you!

Write alone, or grab lots of people in your writing community. Pick a writing prompt for this article. When you’re chosen a favorite, take on a fifteen minute writing sprint.

It never hurts to get some special writing practice in before your holiday celebrations.