Have you ever been channel surfing this time of year, turned to that quintessential holiday movie A Christmas Story, and found yourself unable to change the channel? Why is A Christmas Story a classic? And what can writers learn from the movie?
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.
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Vote for the Winner of the Winter Writing Contest
This week, nearly four hundred writers submitted their stories to the Winter Writing Contest. Right now, our panel of judges is reading through each story, looking for the ones that will make it to the winners’ circle. But this contest, I have an invitation for you, too.
I’m inviting you to step over to the judges’ side of the submission table. I’m inviting you to try reading like an editor and decide which story you would choose as the winner of the Winter Writing Contest.
And then, I’m inviting you to vote on your favorite. That’s right: this contest, we’re offering a Readers’ Choice Award.
The Best Gift a Writer Can Give
The word “gift” has several meanings. Your writing is a gift. A natural ability, and something to give away without payment.
You can give gifts; socks, pencils, toys. Socks will get holes in them, pencils will wear down, and toys will break. Words can create images and bring back memories that will never wear down or break.
Write with intent. Give someone you love a story about how much they mean to you.
Why It’s Okay to Fail
It’s only been ten days since NaNoWriMo finished and I ought to be celebrating. And I am, but in a different way, and not for the reasons you’d think. For the first time in eight years, I did not complete my word count goal. I failed NaNoWriMo.
Being the perfectionist and goal-oriented person that I am, I found myself to be surprisingly okay with November’s outcome. So I’d only written 20,000 words. So what? It’s okay. Do you want to know why? I’ll let you in on a little secret.
3 Essential Factors to Make Your Villain 3D
There’s something appealing about a well-written villain; even though we want them to lose, we still root for them on the down-low. Today, I’m going to give you three tips to help you create the kind of villain people like to read.
3 Steps to Use Empathy to Craft Inspirational Stories
People love to be inspired. It’s what draws us to stories of underdogs, great achievers, and even, to an extent, celebrities. We love to see how regular people just like us can succeed against all odds.
Storytellers often try to cash in on this audience appreciation for underdogs, but we can easily miss the foundational element of an underdog story: empathy. The reason the audience becomes entranced by the story of an underdog is not because underdogs are fundamentally attractive; we are entranced because we empathize with them.
How to Unlock the Power of the Present Tense in Memoir
Memoir is about something that happened in the past. You can write the story in the past tense. Or you can write the story in the present tense, as though it is happening now.
There is power in the present tense. Have you considered using it as you write about the past?
How to Use Metaphor to Deepen Characterization
As a prose writer, I try to suss out where I can deepen and expand my stories, transform a limping clause into a sure-footed guide. Sometimes, as in the preceding sentence, I find metaphor to be the most efficient and evocative tool in my writer’s gym bag.
Metaphor, by conflating two unlike things—often an abstraction like love and a concrete object like a rose (thank you, Shakespeare)—invites readers to connect with our stories via the boundless power of imagination. Or, as James Woods says in How Fiction Works, “[m]etaphor . . . is the entire imaginative process in one move.”
In other words, metaphor helps our stories run smoothly, with steady footing across even the rockiest of terrain, bringing our readers to those stunning vistas seen only from mountaintops.
3 Tips to Help You Finish NaNoWriMo
As I race for the NaNoWriMo finish line, I want to share a few tips with you to help you complete your own race. Starting a book might be easy, but finishing it—and meeting your deadline!—is a struggle. Whatever writing goals you’ve set for yourself, we can meet them together, fellow writers, and here’s how.
4 Cyber Monday Gifts for Writers
It’s Cyber Monday, and we’re sharing some awesome deals on some of our favorite things. Hurry, though—these great deals end tonight!
Pick up one of these incredible offers for the writer in your life. Or snag them for yourself—don’t worry, we won’t tell!
