Looking for tips and articles on the fiction writing craft and techniques? The How to Write shop is a free resource of educational and easy to understand articles on both the craft of writing and writing techniques.
In the writing craft section of the How to Write Shop, you’ll find articles on: characterization, scene and sequel, showing vs. telling, plotting, character development and much more. These articles can help you with writing novels, short stories, poems, essays… or even non-fiction book.
The How to Write Shop knows that writing fiction is a craft. Learning the writing craft and writing techniques, however, can be fun! Check out these educational articles on how to write a book, essay, or screenplay and get writing your next best-selling novel today.
Writing is about choosing powerful, interesting, and specific words to keep your readers engaged no matter what you are writing. Keeping readers engaged means making every word count. And nothing puts me more in the mood for a session of word-nerding than wisdom from Mark Twain. ~~~ “The difference between the almost right word & … [Read more…]
The more you read on writing, the more you realize most concepts go back to a few shared sources or shared ideas. Archetypes are one of those concepts. Both Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung discuss archetypes. They are basically a part of our collective unconsciousness. The same collective unconsciousness that makes The Hero’s Journey such a … [Read more…]
There are many, many ways to plot a book. But, quite honestly, almost all of them… okay the good ones… all tie back in some way to The Hero’s Journey. They may use different names for the steps or plot points. They may not ask you to come up with as many steps or plot … [Read more…]
What is The Hero’s Journey? It depends on who you ask. To a writer, it’s a plotting method. To fans of mythology and folklore, it’s a narrative pattern that human storytellers have followed since we had human storytellers. Which brings us back to why writers use it so much as a plotting method. What is … [Read more…]
Writing a novel can be an overwhelming project, but writing short fiction can be intimidating too. There is nowhere to hide with short fiction. Every word needs to count, but short stories also take less time to complete and even if writing a full novel is your overall goal, writing a short story is a … [Read more…]