New Daily Writing Guides from The Write Practice

Discover 10 Up-And-Coming Writers

by Joe Bunting | 18 Comments

Real writers read. Writers read the classics. Writers read bestsellers in their genre. And writers read the work of their peers.

The problem with today’s market is there are just too many books to be read. How do you know if what you’re reading is going to be any good, especially if it’s a writer I haven’t heard of before?

Personally, I have so much reading to do, I’m rarely interested in reading books by writers I don’t know. Why take the risk?

And this is exactly why we’ve created the Show Off Anthology.

How to Completely Captivate Your Readers

by Melissa Tydell | 92 Comments

We’ve all read stories that keep us enthralled the whole way through. The plot captivates us, and the characters tug at our hearts.

And then there are the stories that we easily put down after several pages or a couple of chapters. We don’t relate to or care about the characters, and the plot doesn’t hold our interest.

How do you write a story that keeps readers completely invested?

How to Write a Song

by Joe Bunting | 31 Comments

There is both magic and discipline in the art of songwriting. You may be reading this as a professional writer or as someone who dabbles for the joy of it, but one thing remains—we are all creative. I honestly believe this.

As I sit here trying to share some of the tricks I’ve learned over the last decade of songwriting, I know you could quit reading right now and go write a great song because the moment may just strike you—magic. I also know you could sit down and decide to write a song and not quit until the job is done—discipline. I would love to help you achieve both.

7 Things to Do When NaNoWriMo Is Over

by Joe Bunting | 17 Comments

For those of you who have held strong this November, you’re almost there! Only two days left in November. Regardless of whether or not you’ve won, the fact that you have made writing a priority this month is a huge accomplishment.

Now that November and NaNoWriMo is almost over, here are seven things you can do after NaNoWriMo.

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

by Liz Bureman | 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.

3 Cyber Monday Deals for Writers

by Joe Bunting | 2 Comments

I think most of us writers are frugal people. The other day, I wanted to pick up the latest Robert Greene book, Mastery, only to discover to my dismay it was $14.99. ”$15 for an ebook?!” I thought. I still bought it (it’s worth it, by the way), but I was cringing inside.

This is why Cyber Monday is so great. Frugal people like us can get so many great deals while avoiding Black Friday’s rabid hordes.

Here are three deals you might want to pay attention to today.

Turkeys Attack [writing prompt]

by Joe Bunting | 25 Comments

PRACTICE

In honor of Thanksgiving, write about an uprising staged by a group of resentful turkeys in protest of their featured place at the Thanksgiving table.

Write for fifteen minutes. When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, please be sure to comment on a few practices by other writers.

Have fun and happy Thanksgiving!

Litotes: Understatement at Its Finest

by Liz Bureman | 15 Comments

Thanksgiving is probably one of the bigger love-it-or-hate-it holidays of the year. If family is involved, it can be either a relaxing time to stuff your face full of tryptophan, or (and this seems more common), it’s an all-hell-breaks-loose affair, with aunts fussing in the kitchen and stressing out over the meal, uncles arguing in the TV room during the football games, little cousins running around screaming their heads off because they’ve had too much pie, and the one sane man/woman sitting in the middle of the chaos trying desperately to harness some sort of chi to keep sanity alive.

Thanksgiving is a not a dull day.

That last sentence seems like a gross understatement, right? That’s what’s known as a litote. A litote is an understatement used to underscore a greater point; in this case, the point is that in most cases, Thanksgiving is absolute insanity.

Why You Should Take a Day Off from Writing

by Melissa Tydell | 25 Comments

It takes 21-28 days to create a new habit—though some research has found it takes as many as 66 days. It takes 10,000 hours to become a “master” at something complex—hence the reason we have a resource like The Write Practice.

But when starting an exercise program, they say it’s important to schedule “rest days” so your body has time to rebuild and grow stronger. Skipping those rest days only leads to injury and burn-out.

So what does that mean for writing?

Moments In Our Lives: How to Write a Memoir

by Joe Bunting | 32 Comments

In my creative writing class when students are required to write a short-story, they often write about themselves. It’s a good idea to write what you know, and I’ve encouraged some to turn their story into a memoir.