Writing Tips
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Newest Articles
Mindful Writing: Interview with Marc Olmsted
In this interview, Writers.com instructor Marc Olmsted explores the connection between mindfulness and writing, and especially how writing mindfully can improve our poetry, fiction, and other creative writing. Below is the full video interview: Here is a text transcript (edited into sections): What mindfulness is I’m very influenced by the simple instructions of Padmasambhava, the Indian meditation…
7 Memoir Writing Tips: Interview with Anya Achtenberg
Knowing how to write a memoir can be difficult, especially when we’re starting out. In this interview, Writers.com instructor Anya Achtenberg covers the seven essential memoir writing tips—and how to write a memoir in the closely related forms of literary nonfiction and autobiographical fiction. Below is the full interview audio: And below is the interview transcribed…
Dealing with Rejection as a Writer: 12 Tips to Get Through
Dealing with rejection as a writer hurts, full stop. Writing is an extremely vulnerable act, and when we then submit that work for publication and have it rejected, it can feel like being karate kicked in the heart. Whatever your ambitions for your writing, we can help you develop strategies for dealing with the inevitable…
From Our Instructors
Writing About Real People
Sneak Peek: This essay is excerpted from some of the materials I’ll be sharing in my class, “The Body and Soul of Your Memoir: Shape, Focus, and Write Your Memoir” at Writers.com starting June 4. When my memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body,…
The 35 Best Gifts for Writers in Your Life
Professional authors chime in on gift ideas for writers—both during the holidays and any time of year. If you’re looking for the best gifts for writers in your life, look no further. There are lots of great gifts for creative writers—you just need to get in a writer’s head. With the help of some lovely…
What is the Setting of a Story? 5 Functions of Setting in Literature
A short story or novel without a setting is one without context—it occurs nowhere and at no particular time. But every person and everything in our everyday world occurs somewhere at some given time. As in real life, characters are connected in some way, or ways, to a given place. They’re always aware of where…
Writing Tips Series
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How to Read Like a Writer
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Writing Prompts
Jump-start your creativity with our writing prompts. Check back regularly for new prompts!
Show and Tell
Write a story or poem about an object with a lot of nostalgic value for you/the narrator. Do not, at any point, tell the reader explicitly what this object is.
Forgive and Forget
Write a story or poem about a time when you had to forget something to maintain a friendship or relationship.
Trash Day
Collect pieces of “junk writing”—spam emails, credit card advertisements, roadside billboards, bumper stickers, etc. Then, write a story or poem that uses all of the junk writing you collected.