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?
Here to learn? You’re in the WRITE place!
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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How to Write a Short Story: 5 Major Steps from Start to Finish
Do you want to learn how to write a short story? Maybe you’d like to try writing a short story instead of a novel, or maybe you’re hoping to get more writing practice without the lengthy time commitment that a novel requires.
The reality of writing stories? Not every short story writer wants to write a novel, but every novelist can benefit from writing short stories. However, shorts stories and novels are different—so how you write them has, naturally, their differences, too.
Short stories are often a fiction writer’s first introduction to writing, but they can be frustrating to write and difficult to master. How do you fit everything that makes a great story into something so short?
And then, once you do finish a short story you’re proud of, what do you do with it?
That’s what will cover in this article—and additionally resources which I will link.
Story Development Process That Works
I often hear practicing writers ask, “What if I can’t think of anything to write about?” Sometimes they even have notebooks full of observations, but they feel like none of them are good enough for a story.
I’ve felt the same way, but there are more opportunities or seeds for ideas in our notebooks than we think. It might be an image, a snippet of a conversation we overheard at lunch, or a social issue that grates against us. Once we have the seeds, how do we take those seeds and develop them into stories?
How to Write a Thrilling Chase Story
Why are games of Hide and Seek or Tag so appealing? I think it’s because they play with our emotions and instincts as hunters and hunted. They stir the elemental embers of our flight response. As an adult, you may not indulge in actual games of tag, but I’ll bet you still love to participate by proxy in the pages of a thrilling book or on the screen.
As a writer, learning to use a chase story, also known as the pursuit plot, will strengthen and diversify your toolbox and may help you create an awesome book.
What is Metonymy? Definition, Types, and Examples Explained
If you’ve heard the saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” then you’ve experienced metonymy. But what is metonymy and how is it used in writing? Let’s look at the definition, types, and examples of metonymy.
10 Critical Mistakes Writers Make in Writing Contests
You work hard to write your best story—and if you’re honest, you’re pretty sure it’s amazing. You share it with other writers to get their feedback, and they agree. You work up your courage and hit the “Submit” button, sending it off to a mysterious panel of writing contest judges.
And then . . . you wait. What will the judges think? Will they agree your story deserves to win it all? Did you write the kind of story that will catch the judges’ eye? What kind of story is that, anyway?
I’m going to take you behind the scenes and reveal exactly what judges are looking for when they choose the winners of writing contests.
How to Edit a Short Story: A Step-By-Step Process Every Writer Can Handle
Writing a short story is difficult, but there’s a special learning curve that comes with how to edit a short story. Even though there is a small word count, where do you start?
The editing process might not be your favorite part of the writing process (or maybe it is!), but it’s a necessary one.
Editing your short story can push the story idea into a whole new arena, which will make it more likely to grab a reader, whether or not that’s a fellow writer, editor, or writing contest judge.
In this article, I’ll take you through the step-by-step process of editing a short story. I’ll share the step-by-step process you should use to break down your editing phase into manageable chunks and what to focus on with each editing pass.
30 September Writing Prompts
September marks the beginning of a new school year for many students around the U.S. New supplies, new goals, and a new opportunity to kick-start your writing habits! Here are 30 September writing prompts to get you started!
Sequence of Events in a Story: How to Order Scenes That Build Suspense
Have you ever felt cheated when reading a book? Like the author held back information that would have enhanced your reading experience? Or neglected to include all the relevant details that would have allowed you to solve the mystery? Did the sequence of events in the story feel…off?
Think about this:
What if J.K. Rowling neglected to have Hagrid tell Harry about his parents’ deaths until the end of The Sorcerer’s Stone?
What if the writers of Die Hard had let Hans Gruber discover Holly was John McClane’s wife right up front?
What if Suzanne Collins had forgotten to alert readers to a rule change allowing tributes from the same district to win as a team in The Hunger Games?
Leaving out these vital pieces of information—or putting them in the wrong place—would have robbed these stories of a full measure of suspense. This would have dulled the impact of their final scenes.
As a writer, you never want readers to feel cheated or disappointed by your book. But how can you make sure you include all the relevant pieces of the puzzle, in the right order, to sustain suspense and satisfy your reader?
How to Use Either, Neither, Or, and Nor Correctly
My mother seems to appreciate having a grammar lover in the family. For Christmas one year, she bought me the book I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar. (By the way, it is equally correct to say “bad grammar.”) Last week, my mother emailed to ask if she was using the word “nor” correctly, which brings me to today’s post: the use of either, neither, and the connecting words that go with them.
