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.
And make sure to subscribe to get a weekly digest of our latest posts, along with our free guide, 10 Steps to Become a Writer.
Pop quiz: what is one character archetype that appears in almost every Shakespeare play AND Disney movie?
I’ll give you a hint by listing some characters: Bottom, Puck, the Iguana in Tangled, Dori in Finding Nemo, the Clown in All’s Well That Ends Well, the Carpet in Aladdin. Got it yet?
Second hint: it’s not a Disney princess.
This is a good question, and one you should be asking yourself. But not today. At The Write Practice, one day a week, we rest from the tyranny of the future. For one day, we focus on the past and on the present. Some call this Sabbath or Shabbat. We just call it rest....
You are not a writer because of how many fans you have, how many subscribe to your blog, how many copies of your book you sold, or how many people have read your book (the last two are never the same). You are a writer because you write. The fans will come long after...
This short story, by Patricia W. Hunter, was the winner of our "Show Off" Writing Competition. Patricia is a freelance writer, a blogger at Pollywog Creek, and a photographer. She lives in the country outside of Fort Meyers, Florida. Follow Patricia on Twitter. When...
For a long time, I wasn't a consistent writer. I figured whenever inspiration struck, I would write. Until then, though, I prefered to do other things with my time. In consequence, I didn't write much, and I didn't get much better at my craft. However, a year ago, I...
Several months ago, I read Max Andrew Dubinsky’s short story, “The Boy With His Heart on His Sleeve,” and didn’t care for it. Too sappy. The metaphor too easy. So when he published a book of short stories last month, We Can’t Go Home Again, I only bought it because it was $0.99 cents.
I’m so glad I did.
If I could use one word to describe We Can’t Go Home Again it would be Ash, like cigarettes, sin, and death. The characters are dirty with it, and Max asks us to look unflinching into their lives. To say I was impressed is an understatement.
Back when I first moved to Denver, I saw a sign that was an inspiration for a post on proper quotation use. And now it’s time for the second installment of proper quotation usage.
We know that quotations are used in dialogue. But what happens when you have a pair of really long-winded characters engaged in extensive conversation?
I've been blocked today. In the last two weeks, the Write Practice has grown by 50%. I've dreamed of this place as a community of writers based around practice, and I'm thrilled and a bit humbled that so many are seeing the potential for such a community for their own...
PRACTICE Write about the desert. Write for fifteen minutes. When you're finished, post your practice in the comments. Here's my practice. Hopefully you can do better. David strode out. Two steps at a time. The hard packed sand-dirt scraped under his feet. There was no...
Well, submissions for our "Show Off" Writing Contest are now closed. I'm excited to tell you seventeen of you decided to submit your Christmas story to the contest, with a total of eighteen stories (yes, one of you submitted twice—you know who you are—it was part of...
