Writing Tips

Every Wednesday, Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and an example poem to get things started on the Poetic Asides blog. This week, write a hurry poem.

Write a piece of flash fiction each day of February with the February Flash Fiction Challenge, led by Managing Editor Moriah Richard. Each day, receive a prompt, example story, and write your own. Today’s prompt is to write a story inspired by a favorite song.

Reading is often an independent practice—but book clubs offer a chance to share the experience and learn something along the way. Here, author Sheila Liming discusses the importance of book clubs for writers.

Every writer needs a little inspiration once in a while. For today’s prompt, a message from an unknown number has surprising consequences.

Award-winning author Kerri Schlottman discusses the real-life documentary photograph that helped inspire her literary novel, Tell Me One Thing.

If you’re writing a story in which your character will need to evolve internally to achieve his goal, a cohesive and well-planned character arc will be vital to its success. This type of arc (a change arc) requires internal conflict, which will provide opportunities for your character to adapt and grow.  But first, let’s quickly The post How Does Internal Conflict Fit into the Character’s Arc? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

In this week’s roundup brought to us by Script magazine, read more filmmaker interviews from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, including an exclusive interview with Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award winning filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz.

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy The worse things get for your character, the better it is for your reader. I love doing terrible things to my characters. I’m a firm believer that whatever doesn’t kill them makes them more interesting. But even I sometimes forget to raise the stakes—or even have stakes—in a scene. I get distracted by the plot, or a world building detail that needs to fit in somehow, or I get caught up in a fun conversation between characters and lose myself in their banter. Anything could cause me to forget to add the stakes, because there’s so much that goes into every scene, it’s easy to miss an important element. But when that element is a core part of keeping readers hooked in the story, it risks ruining a perfectly good scene. Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Inspired by personal experiences, author Kyla Zhao discusses how to write a protagonist leading a double life.

This week, we’re excited to announce the Romance Writing Virtual Conference, six WDU courses, and more!

Here are 21 examples of fantasy tropes for writers to consider and subvert when writing fantastical fiction.

Debilitating fears are a problem for everyone, an unfortunate part of the human experience. Whether they’re a result of learned behavior as a child, are related to a mental health condition, or stem from a past wounding event, these fears influence a character’s behaviors, habits, beliefs, and personality traits. The compulsion to avoid what they The post Fear Thesaurus Entry: Discrimination appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Make this year your most successful writing year ever by considering the following questions to set your goals and intentions.

Journalist Alison Hill answers the question of whether or not the personal essay is considered journalism by defining the genre and offering examples. Plus, outlets for you to publish your own personal essay.

Learn when to use forth vs. fourth in your writing with Grammar Rules from the Writer’s Digest editors, including a few examples.

The Book of Accidents is five bucks for your various E-MACHINE CYBERBOOK platforms. Why is this? I don’t know. How long will it last? I’ve zero idea. But it’s true right now, at the moment I type this, and you’ll find this to be the case at Amazon and Kobo and B&N and Apple and

Every good story needs a nice (or not so nice) turn or two to keep it interesting. This week, make the setting the antagonist.

Gaslighting can work its way into the backstory of a character, but it can also be misused. Here, author Emma Barry discusses gaslighting in romance.

Author and veteran Brad Taylor discusses the research that led to his new thriller novel, The Devil’s Ransom.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about differentiation—how we can make our stories stand out from all the others. Customers are being more careful with their money, which means they’re very likely buying fewer books. With the estimated 1,000,000+ books being published each year, ours need something to set them apart, something that will jump The post Originalizing Your Story Idea appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.