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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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10 Easy Steps to Building an Author Website (2025)

10 Easy Steps to Building an Author Website (2025)

If you’re like most writers I know, you probably dream of getting published. But as I’ve worked with writers for the last six years, I’ve found that most are woefully unprepared for what publishing actually takes, and this means that either they never figure out what it takes to get published or when they finally DO get published, they find themselves disappointed with the process and with how many books they sell.

How do you prepare for getting published though? There are several steps, but the first step is building an author website. In this article, I’m going to share a step-by-step guide to building a simple author website yourself that will support all of your publishing efforts.

How to Shape a Story: The 6 Types of Story Arcs for Powerful Narratives

How to Shape a Story: The 6 Types of Story Arcs for Powerful Narratives

In stories, we get to see the cause-and-effect connections between otherwise random events. We get to experience the deeper meaning in life. We get to see through the chaos of real life and see the underlying pattern.

The literary term for this pattern is story arc, and humans love story arcs.

In this article, we’re going to talk about the definition of story arcs, look at the six most commonly found story arcs in literature, talk about how to use them in your writing, and, finally, study which story arcs are the most successful.

The 9 Types of Stories and How to Master Them

The 9 Types of Stories and How to Master Them

How do you write a best-selling novel or an award-winning screenplay? You might say, great writing or unique characters or thrilling conflict. But so much of writing a great story is knowing and mastering the type of story you’re trying to tell.

What are the types of stories? And how do you use them to tell a great story?

In this article, we’re going to cover the nine types of stories, share which tend to become best-sellers, and share the hidden values that help you master each type.

But first, what do I mean by “types of stories”?

Atmosphere Literary Definition: Genre Examples That Evoke Emotion

Atmosphere Literary Definition: Genre Examples That Evoke Emotion

Atmosphere matters. You might be someone who will pay a premium to eat at a restaurant with a certain ambience or buy a house in a setting that supports a particular feeling. But how do you use atmosphere in your book?

In like manner, your reader won’t remember every word you wrote, but if you infuse the story with atmosphere, they will remember the way it made them feel.

But how can you weave atmosphere into your story without making it feel forced? How can your story’s atmosphere evoke an emotional response and leave a lasting impression on your readers? How can you leverage this literary technique to enhance that feeling?

A strong sense of atmosphere figures into the works of William Shakespeare. Edgar Allan Poe mastered atmosphere in poems like The Raven and his haunting tales of suspense. J.K. Rowling managed it well in the Harry Potter series.

And you can learn it too.

There are many literary devices and elements of fiction a writer uses to impact the atmosphere of a literary work, including figurative language, word choice, similes, and personification. In this post, we’ll examine how point of view and genre considerations help to set the mood and establish atmosphere. 

World Building 101

World Building 101

If you write fiction, you need world building. It’s the skeleton of your story: though unseen, those bones determine the shape of the beast.

What Is an Epilogue? And Is It Okay to Use One in YOUR Book?

What Is an Epilogue? And Is It Okay to Use One in YOUR Book?

You know you’ve seen it at the end of a book, but what does it mean? What is an epilogue actually? Why not just call it, “Last Chapter?” Who thought up this word, “Epilogue,” anyway? And if you’re a writer, should you end you’re book with an epilogue?

20 Crowd-Pleasing Performance Story Ideas

20 Crowd-Pleasing Performance Story Ideas

There are only two options in a performance story: win or lose. And, usually, only one chance to succeed. Today, we have 20 performance story ideas to put your character through their paces. What is a Performance Story? Performance (or sports) stories are one of the...

How to Write a Performance Story

How to Write a Performance Story

Performance or sports stories are one of the most inspiring story types. Full of passion and determination, the characters in performance stories strive against all odds to achieve their goals and earn the respect of those around them. Today, we’re going to explore how to write a performance story that has your reader cheering.

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