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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Ever wondered how to write a book like Stephen King? He’s called the King for a reason, and it’s not just his last name. Stephen King has written in just about every genre imaginable, has sold over 350 million copies of his books, and has had work adapted to movies, miniseries, and comics.
Whether you’ve read him or not, you know who he is and I would be amazed if you haven’t experienced his work in some form or another.
So you want to know how to write a suspense novel. I could tease you with this, play out the line, dangle the carrot tantalizingly in front of you. But I won’t.
I’ll just tell you outright that suspense is my baby, my favorite of all the genres. If you’ve ever experienced those delicious moments as a reader, when your heart is slamming around in your chest, your palms are sweaty, and you can’t turn the pages fast enough, you’ll know what I mean by suspense.
“Have you ever had a great book idea, tried to write it, and then failed?” I’ve asked this question to thousands of writers, and over eighty percent have said, yes, they have failed to finish their books.
Writing is hard, and you might be wondering how to write a book at all, let alone in 100 days.
But it is possible to write a book in just 100 days, and today, I’d love to share ten lessons about how to write a book from dozens of different writers who are finishing their book in 100 days right now.
Writing series are all the rage right now in fiction. Everyone is fighting for readers’ attention. Once you have it, a great way to keep it is to send the reader to a second, third, and fourth book. But do you know how to write a book series?
We’re on the verge of summer, and that means I’m attending graduations (including my oldest son’s). Whether you are attending one for a friend or family member or yourself, commencement ceremonies are a great place for inspiration and one other thing: cliché-hunting.
Clichés are overused phrases or metaphors that weaken our writing. As writers, we want to hunt down, drag out, and kill clichés in our writing. (I know, the killing metaphor is also probably cliché. I’m still working on it.) Here are some ideas for how to avoid clichés in our writing.
Sometimes the hardest part about writing is coming up with the initial story idea. Once the spark of creativity is lit, the story will flow. All it takes to get moving is a strong title, inspiring image, or moving concept.
Creativity is like a muscle. If you haven’t used it in a while, it can become stiff and sore when you try to work it out. With the holidays in full force, between my full-time job, my children’s activities, and the various family get-togethers finding time to write can become difficult. I’ll get a thirty-minute window to write, sit down to type out a story, and waste all my time trying to figure out what to say.
Writing prompts are wonderful tools to get the words flowing. Today we are going to look at three tools you can use to get your creative juices going.
Recently, I found myself dreading my scheduled writing time. I was bored with my book, tired of the grind, and angry that my revision was taking so long. I had lost my writing joy. Is it time to abandon a book or project once you lose your joy? Or is there a way to recalibrate and find the fun in your project and the joy of writing again?
165,000 people search “how to right a book” every month.
(NOTE: Step one to write a book, get a good critique group who will catch those spelling errors.)
Seriously though, wouldn’t it be great to write a book? To see your name on that glossy cover, flip the pages filled with words you’ve written, to be able to tell your friends, “I’m an author.”
How do you write a book?
Do you want to help people? Do you feel a calling to use your writing to be a voice of encouragement to others? Do you want to know how to write a self-help book that will share your stories and wisdom with thousands of readers?
Thanks to the unique life that you’ve lived, only you have access to the treasure trove of experience and knowledge in your heart and mind. Within that trove are lessons that readers need to learn, and only you can teach them.
Fill in the blank: I can’t finish my draft because _______. Are you sure that is what is holding you back?
This is one of the busiest months of the year for me. I’m usually disciplined, but there are some especially busy seasons when writing is hard to prioritize. As one of my classes began reading Fahrenheit 451 this month, I remembered a letter Ray Bradbury sent to a librarian about how he wrote the novel. It was just what I needed to get back to finishing my book.
