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.
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By nature, human beings are creatures of habit. We stick to what we’re good at it and we like to do what we’ve always done.
Habit is defined as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.’”And habits are hard for us to give up. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to make a major lifestyle change—it breaks us out of our comfort zone.
For writers, though, habit can be particularly detrimental.
Earlier this week, my dad asked me for feedback on a story he wrote. The story is about a father figure who turned out to be something of a con man. Memoir is often boring, but this story was amazing, stranger than fiction.
You could also tell the story was written by an amateur. My dad is a good storyteller, but telling a story to a few people at a party and writing professionally are two very different things.
What’s the difference between pro and amateur writing? How can you write a story as good as any professional writer?
How many times do you edit your novel? I’ve asked several people this question and gotten varied results: three times, seven time, ten times. Some even edit as they write. I edit my novel five times. Every time I use what I call, “The Five-Draft Plan,” I get good results. Every time. What is “The Five-Draft Plan?” Read on and you shall see.
We've covered heroes and anti-heroes fairly thoroughly in the past couple of weeks, but we wouldn't have any of the shades of heroes without having their counterpart: the villain. A well-written villain can make or break a story, because a hero is only as compelling...
As I write this, I’m one month away from my due date, the estimated arrival of my husband’s and my first child. At many points in life, we are in a state of looking forward. Anticipation of an event—whether it’s a joyous or devastating one—puts everything in a new perspective. It heightens your awareness, incites excitement or anxiety (or both!), and brings up a lot of emotions.
Whether you’re crafting a fictional story or recounting your own experience, how do you write about a time of anticipation in a realistic, compelling way?
Write about California, your personal experiences with the Golden State or your perceptions of it.
Write for fifteen minutes. When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, be sure to give feedback on a few practices by other writers.
Personally, I enjoy beautiful writing. A few years ago, I was reading Faulkner on a bus. Liz read one page and said, “Yuck. So confusing. Do you even understand that?”
“Sometimes. He writes so beautifully, though,” I said.
There’s something about beautiful writing that makes us want to read it. Perhaps Faulkner’s not your favorite, but have you ever read something where you just said, “Wow,” and immediately knew you were reading a true master?
What is it about beautiful writing that is beautiful? Is beauty just in the eye of the beholder? In other words, are we culturally conditioned to think some writing is beautiful? Or is there something universal in beautiful writing, something that exists beyond cultural relativity but is inherent in all human perceptions?
While using names is funny in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, it’s not as funny in your novel.
In an effort to win the heart of Zelda Sayre, F. Scott Fitzgerald finished his first novel, This Side of Paradise, at age twenty-three. Truman Capote caught the attention of Random House publishing with his story Miriam, just shy of his twenty-first birthday. When Ernest Hemingway was twenty-six he wrote The Sun Also Rises, and Mary Shelley completed the manuscript for Frankenstein at nineteen. Perhaps it’s just my own insecurities leaving me feeling rather inadequate with this knowledge, but I suspect I’m not alone.
It’s summer. For me, it is an unusual one, full of travels, visiting friends, family, and living on the road. While all this is great and exciting, the question of writing always remains at the back of my mind, awakening my conscience.
How to keep up writing on a summer schedule, outside the normal routine? More importantly, why make the effort of doing it there and then instead of sinking in the adventures and impressions to write about it later on?