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.

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.

Show, Don’t Tell: The Secret to Great Writing with Show and Tell Examples

Show, Don’t Tell: The Secret to Great Writing with Show and Tell Examples

You’ve heard the classic writing rule, “Show. Don’t Tell.” Every writing blog ever has talked about it, and for good reason.

Showing, for some reason, is really difficult. Yet, it’s also one of the most important writing techniques you need to master if you want your own writing stand out.

Telling is one of the hardest habits to eradicate from your style. I still struggle with it regularly. However, writing that shows is so much more interesting than writing that tells. Most of the time.

In this article, you’ll find the definition of “show, don’t tell,” see several show don’t tell examples, and learn the one simple trick to strengthen your writing style.

Character Development: Create Characters That Readers Love

Character Development: Create Characters That Readers Love

Characters are the heart of any story. There are plenty of methods out there to help your character development. But when it’s time to give your characters shape and definition, don’t waste time on extensive questionnaires that get you weighed down in details.

Daily Routines of Writers: Using the Power of Habits and Triggers to Write Every Day

Daily Routines of Writers: Using the Power of Habits and Triggers to Write Every Day

I’ll start with the bad news.

Much of what you’ve heard about daily routines is more fictional than the stories you’re writing. Everyone seems to have their own “key” to productivity: motivation, willpower, passion, and big goals being the most common.

While these all have the vague ring of truthiness, you’ve probably noticed that, in practice, the results of such methods are inconsistent to nonexistent.

Fortunately, there’s a simple cure.

Habits.

How a Scene List Can Change Your Novel-Writing Life

How a Scene List Can Change Your Novel-Writing Life

By the end of this post you will be using an excel spreadsheet.

Don’t make that face—I know you’re a writer and not a data analyst. Or if you are a data analyst—I understand that you’re on this blog to get away from you day job. I get it. But guess what? At the suggestion of Randy Ingermason—the creator of the Snowflake Method— I listed all of the scenes in my novel in a nice little Google spreadsheet. It changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too.

Euphemism: Literary Definition and Examples for Writers

Euphemism: Literary Definition and Examples for Writers

Euphemistic language is everywhere in polite society, used to speak and write sensitively about taboo subjects or to tackle difficult situations.
Parents sometimes refer to “the birds and the bees” as a euphemism for sex when speaking to their kids.
Euphemisms can make it both easier and harder to talk about uncomfortable topics, so they can be used in interesting ways in literature.

How to Start Small with Fantasy Worldbuilding

How to Start Small with Fantasy Worldbuilding

Many fantasy writers love world building—sketching out maps, cataloguing pantheons, and crafting magic systems. But when it’s time to write a story set in that world, they often struggle to translate their fantasy worldbuilding lore into narrative. This is understandable. After all, how do you fit an entire world into a book—and tell a compelling story at the same time? The answer, paradoxically, is to start small.

How to Write a Book: The Ultimate Guide (with Free Book Idea Worksheet!)

How to Write a Book: The Ultimate Guide (with Free Book Idea Worksheet!)

You want to write a book. Maybe you have a great story idea. Maybe you have a big idea you want to share with the world. Maybe people have told you, “Your life should be made into a book!” But first, you have to learn how to write a book.

The problem for the first-time author is figuring out how to get started. What are the writing habits you need to finish the actual writing for an entire book? And what comes next: traditional publishing? Self-publishing? Becoming a New York Times bestselling book?

Because after coaching thousands of writers to write and finish their books, and also writing fifteen books of my own, I know exactly how much hard work it takes to finish a book.

It’s not enough to want to write, you need to know how to write a book.

You need to have the right process. The write process, you might say (sorry, I had to!).

In this guide, we’re going to learn everything about how to write a nonfiction book, from how to defeat procrastination and find writing time, all the way to revising and the editing process—and even to the publishing process.

If you’ve ever wanted to write a book, whether a memoir, a big idea book, or a self help book, you’re in the right place.

If, on the other hand, you’re a fiction writer and have a main character who you know is going to take the world by storm, we have a complete guide on novel writing here. For you nonfiction writers, though, read on for all our best writing tips.

June Writing Prompts

June Writing Prompts

Here are 30 June writing prompts from journal prompts to story starters to skill building prompts. Try one and keep your writing sharp this summer.

Author Email List: How to Sell Books Through Email

Author Email List: How to Sell Books Through Email

Whether you’re self publishing or you have a traditional publisher, it’s up to you to sell your books. Email marketing is the number one way to sell books. But in order to use email marketing effectively, you first have to gather a list of email addresses, a group of readers who want to hear from you.

Struggling to build your list? Try this.

Say Yes to Practice

Join over 450,000 readers who are saying YES to practice. You’ll also get a free copy of our eBook 14 Prompts:

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