Writing Tips
How to Write Flash Fiction Stories
Like a lightning strike, flash fiction stories can be over in an instant—radically altering the terrain of the reader’s imagination. These bite-sized stories take a lot of style, skill, and effective word choice to pull off. Many writers try to conquer the flash fiction form in their writing careers, but the short-short story requires lots…
Read MoreHow to Write a Poetry Book and Get It Published
Writing a poetry book requires courage, stamina, and a lot of patience with yourself. The poetry book ranks at the top of many poets’ to-do lists, but getting a manuscript in front of poetry book publishers takes years of writing and planning. This article covers the essentials of getting new poetry books into print, covering both…
Read MoreWord Play: Examples of a Play on Words
It goes without saying that writers are drawn to language, but because we love words so much, the English language is filled with word play. By interrogating the complexities of language—homophones, homographs, words with multiple meanings, sentence structures, etc.—writers can explore new possibilities in their work through a play on words. It’s easiest to employ…
Read MoreHow to Come Up With Story Ideas
How do writers develop good story ideas? Sometimes, coming up with a story idea is the hardest part about writing fiction. Figuring out what to write about can be frustrating, as the desire to create meets the uncertainty surrounding where to begin. Writers are often taught how to write their stories, but not how to…
Read MoreHow to Set SMART Writing Goals for 2024
Happy 2024! We hope this year will be full of writing for you—and if you’re like us, you’ve even got writing goals among your New Year’s Resolutions. One thing to consider is that not all goals are created equal. Goals can be fuzzy (“I want to write more”), over-ambitious, or have lots of other issues.…
Read MoreCinquain Poetry: How to Write a Cinquain Poem
A cinquain is a stanza composed of five lines, which makes a cinquain poem a poem composed of five-line stanzas. These short poems are the perfect length to find insight through brevity, and if you’re considering tinkering with shorter poetry forms, you might want to play with cinquain poetry. What is a cinquain poem, and…
Read MoreSymbolism in Literature: What Symbolism Is, and How to Use It In Your Writing
Symbolism describes the use of concrete images to convey abstract ideas. Because this literary device is widely open to interpretation, and because many readers form different relationships to concrete objects, this is one of the more slippery elements of literature to both understand and convey to an audience. Nonetheless, understanding symbolism, and knowing what is…
Read MoreWhat is Theme? A Look at 20 Common Themes in Literature
When someone asks you “What is this book about?”, there are a few ways you can answer. There’s “plot,” which refers to the literal events in the book, and there’s “character,” which refers to the people in the book and the struggles they overcome. Finally, there are themes in literature that correspond with the work’s…
Read MoreFlat Character vs. Round Character: Definitions and Examples
Every fictional person that populates books, movies, and plays falls into one of two categories: flat characters and round characters. Flat and round characters each fill important roles in works of fiction, and while this isn’t the only way to categorize fictional characters, it’s a useful distinction to help guide your own character writing. What…
Read MoreIrony Definition: Different Types of Irony in Literature
What is irony? Well, it’s like rain on your wedding day. It’s a free ride, when you’ve already paid. ’90s radio is helpful here. Okay; but what is irony? It can often be easier to point to specific ironies than to find a definition of irony itself that hits home. Irony definition: contradiction of our…
Read More