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.
In this story type, the hero and their comrades are attempting to thwart death in the face of an overwhelming physical obstacle, usually in the form of a figure of nature.
This isn’t to say that an adventure story can’t have a villain. However, the primary threats will always come in physical form, forcing the characters to dig deep and find the strength and resolve to endure.
Writing a book is hard. I’ve written seven books and at some point during each one I had the thought, “There has to be a tool, a piece of book writing software, that would make this easier.”
Bad news/good news: writing a book will always be hard, and the best piece of writing software in the world won’t write your book for you. But the good news is there is book writing software that can make the process a little easier.
In this post, we will cover the ten best pieces of software for writing a book and look at the pros and cons of each.
Your story’s setting includes everything that affects your characters. It is the environment in which they live, breathe, and find meaning. It is where they fail and learn to succeed. All this to say, your story’s environment matters.
Some of the books that make the biggest impact on us as readers are the books we read as children and teens. If you want to write for teens, today we have some young adult YA writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing. Use one of these story ideas to write your own YA story!
It’s your dream to publish and sell a book. Thankfully, there’s never been a better time to do it, as all the tools you could possibly require are at your fingertips. And the best news is that many of them don’t cost a penny, allowing you to publish, market, and sell your book for free! All you have to do is figure out how to sell books.
Of course, what you don’t pay in cash you will be paying in gumption. As with any publishing route, there are pros and cons to using mostly free resources, and I’ll illustrate those as we go so hopefully you can avoid some of the mistakes I made in my own free publishing journey.
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.
We recently talked about how long your blog posts should be. Today, let’s talk about how to write a blog post that helps you accomplish your writing goals, and the three blog post templates that can help you accomplish this.
Stories are complicated, twisty, multi-faceted things. At some point, in many of the best stories, it feels like everything is in complete chaos, and then, seemingly all at once, it’s as if the chaos has come to a head in a way that makes everything line up perfectly.
And one of the best tools in a writer’s tool belt is the subplot.
But what is a subplot? How can you spot it in the books and stories you love most? And if you’re a writer, how do you use it to tell better stories?
In this article, I’m sharing everything you need to know about subplots. I’ll start with the definition of the literary term, then show you how it fits into a story structure, examples of some of my favorite subplots, and even tips from my own experience on writing novels with subplots.
Young adult novels have never been more popular. It started with the rise of Harry Potter and continued with hits like The Fault in Our Stars, The Hunger Games, and Divergent. Have you ever wondered how to write a YA novel?
Learning how to write fiction is one thing, but writing for teens is a whole different ball game. As a teen and an avid YA reader myself, I have a few tips for you.
Have you ever wondered which draft you are working on? Do you wonder what the difference is between your first draft, your second draft, and editing your book? You can learn the first draft definition and the differences between drafts in this article.
When writing multiple drafts of a book, you may be halfway through your rough draft and decide to start over. Or you may have written the entire manuscript, but then wish to scrap it and start fresh.
And when considering this, you question: “Am I writing a first draft? Am I editing my novel?”
What does “first draft” mean—or “second draft,” for that matter?
Knowing the differences between first drafts, second drafts, and editing your book will elevate your ability to tackle the writing and editing process. It will help you understand what to focus on when you’re writing—and have fun while you do it!
