New Daily Writing Guides from The Write Practice

How to Edit Your Story Like a New York Publisher

You have finished writing the first draft of your story, a version of your whole story from beginning to end. Now it is time to edit, to revise your words to make your story clear and compelling, so the reader will continue reading after the first sentence.

Editing your story might feel like an impossible task, but when you have a strategy to use, you can be confident you can edit your own story and improve your writing.

Whatever you do, do not skip the important step of editing your first draft. According to David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, “Revision is all there is.”

100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises

by Joe Bunting | 52 Comments

Want to become a better writer? Perhaps you want to write novels, or maybe you just want to get better grades in your essay writing assignments, or maybe you’d like to start a popular blog.

If you want to write better, you need practice. But what does a writing practice actually look like? In this post, I’m going to give you everything you need to kick off your writing practice and become a better writer faster.

How to Write a Story: 10 Steps to Master the Art of Storytelling

by Joe Bunting | 371 Comments

Writing isn’t easy, and writing a good story is even harder.

I used to wonder how Pixar came out with such great movies, year after year. Then, I found out a normal Pixar film takes six years to develop, most of it on the story.

How do you write a story, and more importantly, how do you write one that’s good?

Could’ve, Would’ve, Should’ve: Fighting the Good Contraction Fight

by Liz Bureman and Elizabeth Nettleton | 15 Comments

In speech, when you contract “could have,” “would have,” or “should have,” you end up with what sounds like, “could of,” “would of,” and “should of.” However, that is not what should be written. The proper contracted forms of could/would/should have are could’ve/would’ve/should’ve.

And yes, could’ve is an acceptable contraction. What is not acceptable is saying “could of” instead, because that is just plain wrong.

10 Writing Hacks to Actually Finish Your Book

by Joe Bunting | 42 Comments

Are you struggling to write? Read on for my best writing hacks to get you writing now.

There’s no getting around it. Writing is hard. Whether you’re writing your first book, crafting an essay for school, blogging, or just writing for fun, there are so many things against you.

First is the time itself. What you could say in five minutes takes a huge amount of time to write into coherent, grammatically sound sentences.

Then there are the distractions: social media, video games, endless sudoku puzzles (my personal kryptonite).

Finally, and perhaps worst of all, there is writer’s block, which can vary from a general aversion to writing to crippling self-doubt and an inability to put any words on a page, let alone something good.

Yes, writing is hard. So hard it’s amazing people write at all, some for fun no less!

The good news is that if you’re having a hard time writing, you’re not alone. Even great writers struggle with distraction and writer’s block. To be honest, I struggle too. I’ve written 15 books and still struggle on a daily basis to write.

At the same time, writing can be amazing, inspiring, fulfilling, even life changing. If you’re struggling to write, in this article I’m going to share all the writing tips to help you get focused that I know. Hopefully at least one of these tricks will get your creativity thrumming, get the words moving, and help you finally get to writing.

So grab a cup of coffee, open up a blank page, and get ready to write.

How to Market a Book: 10 First Steps

by Joe Bunting | 1 Comment

Have you ever wonder how to market a book? You spend months, maybe even years writing, editing, then rewriting your book until it’s a masterpiece (or at least finished). Now what? How do you turn all that hard work into sales and, if it’s not too much to ask, money!

There are hundreds of things to discuss when it comes to how to market a book, but what are the first steps you need to take, if you’re starting from scratch? That’s what were going to talk about in this article. Ready to get started?

Best Book Writing Software: Word vs. Scrivener

by Joe Bunting | 79 Comments

When you’re writing a book, you might come to this point where exasperation turns to desperation and you think: “There has to be a better way. There has to be a better piece of book writing software than Microsoft Word.”

Microsoft Word is the default word processor, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only option. And especially when you’re writing something as complicated as book, you might want a piece of writing software geared specifically toward writing a book.

In this post, we’re going to look closely the most popular alternative to Microsoft Word: Scrivener, and talk about where each word processor shines and where each falls short.

From Amateur Blog to Pro Blog: How to Level Up Your Writing

by Joe Bunting | 42 Comments

When I first started blogging, I set up a free account with Blogger. It was great. I didn’t have to understand any crazy computer code. I just had to worry about writing. Then, I read somewhere that I should install Google Analytics to see how many people were reading my blog. It took me an hour, but I figured out how to insert the hieroglyphic-looking code into my theme and opened up my analytics page.

I found out there were about seven people reading my blog. That’s it? I thought. That started me on a quest to figure out how to get more people to read my blog.

25 August Writing Prompts

by Sue Weems | 1 Comment

It’s mid-summer and a great time to do some daily writing! Check out these 25 August writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

The (Un)usual Suspects: Unreliable Narrators in Film and Literature

by Liz Bureman and Elizabeth Nettleton | 34 Comments

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Usual Suspects. I could watch it on a loop, and I’d still never get sick of it. If you haven’t seen it, I’m going to spoil the ending, and if you keep reading and get mad at me, it’s your own fault because that movie has been around since 1995 and you really should have seen it by now.

The vast majority of the movie is Kevin Spacey’s con man character telling a cop about a job that results in a huge explosion and lots of deaths. He says the mastermind behind the job is a man named Keyser Soze. At the end of the movie, we learn that Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze, and a good number of details from the story that he told the police were made up from things he observed in the cop’s office.

The first thing your brain does after it picks itself up off the floor is get confused: Wait—if he made up those details, what other bits of information did he make up? Was anything he just told us real? Is Keyser Soze even real?

And just like that, the movie that was so straightforward for the first 100 minutes is suddenly a completely different movie.

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