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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Pseudo-working looks like work, but it doesn’t produce much. If you’ve ever been trying to focus on writing an article while checking your phone for social media updates and fielding dinner requests, you’re pseudo-working. (No, I’m not doing that right now, why do you ask?)
Admitting the dangers of pseudo-working has helped me focus and get more writing done in less time. See if it will help you too!
I recently went on a writing retreat with several other Young Adult writers, and Beth Revis helped each of us to fix the pacing and plot holes in our novels by using her four-act structure for a novel.
Some writing techniques aren’t for everybody, but as soon as she walked me through this outlining process, I was hooked. It gave me the perfect guideline for plotting all of my future novels. In fact, I used it to plot my NaNoWriMo novel for this year.
So let’s talk about the four-act novel structure and what some of the key points are in the outline to help you plan out your next book.
The new year is almost here, and for most people that means setting new writing goals and pushing themselves to be better, more productive, and happier.
Before you dive into setting big writing plans for 2019, I urge you to take time out to look at your accomplishments and evaluate the writing goals you set for 2018.
Have you ever read a story that just falls flat for you and you don’t know why? Chances are it was missing one of the archetypical elements our brains are hardwired to seek out in a story. When you sit down at the keyboard, the last thing you want to do is write a story that fails to grab and hold a reader.
Do you think about your writing too much? Do you focus too much on unfinished writing goals?
I know I do. Every day I catch myself worrying about word counts, deadlines, and opportunities I’ll be missing out on.
You’d think that this kind of obsession would make you a better writer, or at least a more motivated one. But it’s probably poisoning you, embittering you against the very craft you’ve come to love.
To save yourself from this jaded point of view, you need a way to take a step back. You need thankfulness.
It can be difficult to find the motivation to write during the holidays. With family around us and added responsibilities, the last thing we can think about is the story we are working on. Sometimes, all we need to give ourselves a motivational boost is a change of...
Happy Halloween, everyone! Since I write horror, this is obviously my favorite holiday. To celebrate, I crafted several six-word horror stories to tweet throughout the day. And today, you’re going to practice doing the same thing!
Warning: Six-word stories are addicting.
Surprise! Okay, that probably wasn’t very surprising. How do you surprise your readers? And how do you create the slow burn of suspense, keeping them on the edge of their seats as they tear through your story? Let’s talk about how to make a story suspenseful.
Write a manifesto, a statement of what you believe, to help others, or yourself. Are you wondering how to write a manifesto? You have come to the right place.
The word “manifesto” is from the Latin word “manifesto,” “make public,” which comes from the Latin word “manifestus,” or “obvious.”
Write a manifesto about something that is obvious to you, or that you would like to be obvious to you. Write your manifesto to make it public to everyone, so that it will become obvious, natural, even when it is hard for you to believe it yourself.
For many of you, Halloween is a time to dream up frightening stories with scenes that thrill and startle your readers. It’s the perfect moment to practice how to write a scary story.
Yet writing a scary scene is easier said than done. To truly scare your readers, you need to be one step ahead of them. If they can predict what’s coming, or if the story doesn’t feel scary, then your writing won’t work.
Here’s how to write a truly scary scene that your readers will love!
