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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Writers’ conferences can launch a career. They bring writers face to face with authors, agents, editors, publishers, and other writers at all skill levels.
But they can feel overwhelming for the uninitiated. With all the offerings, how does a writer navigate a conference to get the most from it?
If you’re following along with our short story publication series, by now, you should have a publication in mind and have the answers to a couple basic questions. Maybe you brainstormed or did a full outline. Bonus points if you’ve got a draft! (But don’t worry if you don’t.)
Now pick up the pen and write the thing!
Writer’s anxiety is often caused by a belief that I MUST BE WRITING ALL THE THINGS ALL THE TIME. It simply isn’t true. Even those who write full time recognize that there are seasons to writing, just as there are seasons of life.
A lot of you have just finished participating in The Write Practice’s Short Story Publication Challenge. You’re pumped, inspired, enthused. You feel good about establishing a writing habit. Now what?
Now you submit it. Then you write another and submit that one too.
This post is the first in a four-part series that will walk you through the process of planning, writing, and submitting a short story. At the end of the series, you’ll have a short story ready for submittal!
Yeah, like you’re going to see a list of plot types that doesn’t include the Quest. The Quest is a search for a place, item, or person that requires the hero to leave home in order to find it. Sometimes the item is just a MacGuffin to drive the plot along; other times the thing driving the quest is specific to the story’s circumstances. Either way, the hero is leaving home to find whatever the heck the story demands, and we get to come along for the ride.
Tone in writing refers to both the writer’s feelings and attitude towards the subject and the audience and how those feelings are expressed. Tone is one of the elements of writing, and writers convey their tone through word choice and syntax. Like tone of voice, it helps set the mood of the writing piece and influences the reader interpretation.
Examples of tone can be formal, informal, serious, humorous, sarcastic, optimistic, pessimistic, and many more (click here for all forty-two examples)
Last week, I overheard a conversation at a neighboring table where a woman said, “He’s always trying to prove himself. It makes him look less competent than he is.” I didn’t know the parties involved, but I grabbed a napkin and jotted it down. When I added it to my notebook, I realized characters with something to prove often undermine their own success. And those insecurities make for an amazing writing prompt.
Writing is a solitary profession for the most part, but sooner or later, we realize we need a network of people, from beta readers to editors and eventually readers. Some writers retreat, discouraged by unkind comments or unsupportive friends or family, believing that someday, somehow their work will reach a wider audience.
But writing alone and hard work aren’t enough by themselves. Very few writers can write and launch a book and career entirely in isolation. (Plus, being a part of a writing or creative community is much more fun.)
Here are a few small steps for finding, joining, or building a writing community.
Fear, anticipation, and self-doubt are just a few emotions I felt during my first writing contest. Maybe you’re in the same place now. Wondering if you have a chance among the many entrants. Uncertain if it’s worth the time and effort.
Short answer—it is. And that holds true whether you win or lose.
But I also want to reveal five tips for improving your winning chances in a writing contest. See, I won the Short Fiction Break 2020 Summer Writing Contest with my story Dark Time. Here’s how.
How do you sell more books? This is a question I hear frequently from authors in our community. When you’ve done the hard work of writing a book, when you’ve even managed to get your book published, it would be nice to be able to get your book into the hands of readers. But anyone who has published a book knows that selling books isn’t simple.
That’s where Publisher Rocket, a powerful piece of book marketing software, comes in. What is Publisher Rocket, and will it help you in your book writing and marketing efforts? In this post, I’ll be sharing my Publisher Rocket review. I’ll also talk about how I personally use the tool.
