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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Recently when I looked over the first draft of my latest novel in order to buckle down and start editing, I noticed that there were a lot of sections that bored me. My mind started to wander and I couldn’t figure out why. Looking more closely, I found the answer: I was playing it too safe. In order to ramp up the tension in excitement, I had to master this one technique; I had to get uncomfortable.
With warmer weather comes thoughts of escape. Beaches, mountains, and yet-to-be-explored cities call to us. We get that itch, that need to run away and relax somewhere without our bosses nagging us. Or maybe you need to hang upside down on a roller coaster or meet Cinderella. Regardless, it’s vacation time!
For a writer, taking a week or two off from writing can be detrimental. You obviously don’t want to keep up with your 1,000-words-a-day writing schedule, but there are simple ways to feed the muse while on vacation and make it easier slide back into your routine when you return home.
You know what’s really fun to edit? Dangling participles. What’s a participle? Glad you asked.
A participle is an adjective form of a verb, usually formed by adding the suffix –ing to the verb. For example, you might go for a light 15k in your running shoes. Or your sister might be screaming because she burned herself with her curling iron. Make sense?
Let’s take a closer look and find out where these participles go wrong.
This week, nearly three hundred writers submitted their stories to the Spring Writing Contest. Right now, our panel of Story Grid Certified Editors is reading through each story, looking for the ones that will make it to the winners’ circle. And while they’re hard at work, I have an invitation for you, too.
Come vote on your favorite to win the Readers’ Choice Award!
When our creative tap feels like it has run dry, sometimes all we need to get our creative juices flowing again is a fun writing challenge. That’s why today’s post is a writing prompt based on the Story Grid.
Writers hear the words “No thanks” often. Whether you’ve submitted a story for a contest or a literary magazine or you’ve sent out query letters to agents, you know that sting when the results are published and your name isn’t on the list, or the sinking feeling when you get another reply from an agent, “Sorry, going to pass this time.”
Publishing is fraught with rejection. What if we could stop being afraid of it and instead plan for it as a natural part of our process? Hearing “No” doesn’t have to derail us when we have a plan.
Let’s face it: You love to write. Yet a moment always seems to come when that passion feels more like a prison.
Perhaps it’s due to a crushing deadline. Maybe writing becomes exhausting because the words just don’t come. Maybe the readers don’t come either, and you wonder whether writing is even worth it.
It’s so important for writers to know how to rest. To step back from these pressures and find hope. Overcoming burnout — or the early stages of burnout, if you realize you’re getting worn down — is vital to your writing and your own well-being.
Three times this week I have come across encouragement from writers who wrote, edited, and published books at the margins of their lives, and writers who overcame incredible odds to get their stories into the world. It reminded me that we all face some kind of...
Almost two months ago, we started this journey to find out how to publish a short story. We’ve drafted, we’ve gotten feedback, we’ve edited. If you’ve been following along, you should have a completed short story by now. (Mine’s ready. Is yours?)
This week, you’re sending that story out!
If you want to become a better writer and eventually get published, you should join a writing contest. Here’s why: writing contests are one of the best ways to practice your writing (and as I’m sure you can imagine, we’re pretty obsessed with writing contests over...
