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.
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When we read books, books with characters we love, we can learn how to write our own characters by studying what details the writers included. There are so many details about your characters you could include in a character description, but which ones do you need?
Let’s look at the advice Stephen King gives in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft about good description and see if applies to Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
It's hard work to write an entire book. However, you can make your writing process a lot easier if you commit to writing a book outline before you tackle the actual writing. But what if you're resistant to writing a book outline? Maybe you're afraid that you'll dread...
Many aspiring writers believe that once they finish and publish the book, the money will just roll in without any further action or plan! In fact, every time I visit a school to share my books, I can count on one bright-eyed first grader raising their hand to ask, “Are you rich?” This question make makes me smile in an “if you only knew” kind of way, because this is the truth: Most financially best-selling and successful authors have multiple income streams across their author platform.
You are in a business—the book business. Let’s look at some of these income streams and how you might make money writing books as a full-time author.
Names — character names or the names of people in real life — are a big deal. Parents-to-be pore over baby name books for months looking for that “perfect” name. Even naming a pet can take time. You want the name to be perfect, to mean something, to be unique but not too “weird.”
Naming a character, especially in a longer piece of writing, can be just as agonizing and is definitely just as important.
When someone asks you, “How are you?” how should you respond? Should you say, “I’m good,” or, “I’m well?” Which is correct grammatically: good or well.
Since “how are you?” became a standard greeting, the use of good vs. well has been hotly disputed. Let’s straighten this confusion out.
Can book writing software replace an editor? Nope. But it can help you improve your grammar and readability.
You were born to tell stories and share your message with the world. But you sit down to type and something terrible happens. Your fingers misspell things. Verbs switch tenses as you type. Nothing works quite like it did when it was still just a compelling idea in your head.
You reread and catch a few errors, but what if you’ve reached the end of your grammar prowess? Need some book writing software to help improve your writing?
Think of one of your favorite authors, maybe a children’s book author, since that’s what I write. For little ones, it might be Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. And for for older kids, perhaps you like Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
When you purchase one of these books, you know what to expect. Eric Carle offers soothing rhymes and stories with bright and cheery collage artwork. Jeff Kinney, on the other hand, gives readers funny, endearing stories featuring his signature cartoon protagonist, Greg.
An author brand is what makes your work unique or distinctly you. It’s the collection of impressions you make across your interactions with readers, including your books, social media, and face-to-face meetings. Your brand tells readers what to expect from you as an author as well as what to expect from your books.
Haiku are a type of traditional Japanese poetry. Only three lines long, haiku are fun to write and share. Let’s find out what a haiku poem is and what we need to write our own!
For those of us who’ve been in the writing biz a while, there is a quote by Stephen King we’ve all seen a thousand times (and if you’re new to writing, fear not: you’ll see this quote a thousand times, too).
I love Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s the idea that every hero, and hero’s journey, uses many of the same characters, symbols, and themes.
So in honor of Thanksgiving, let’s write a story with the Noble Gobbler in the role of the hero, or Pro-turk-onist!
