Where Bad Writers Turn Good
People who read often get annoyed about errors in published material. Their ire made me retire my own. However, it also brought up—not annoyance, because I get paid to fix mistakes—a screaming head full of chronic errors. Here, I will list the most common 21 grammatical errors that drive readers nuts. Maybe, you’ll recognize a few and nod your head in agreement. Maybe, if you’re a writer, you even make a few yourself…
Being a writer is hard. Nobody denies that. It is one of the toughest, most unforgiving career paths one can choose, and at the end of the day, only the strong (and lucky) survive. But then, why do people still do it? This collection of creative, nonfiction essays written by a diverse range of published... Continue Reading →
In reading numerous works on the writing process and receiving advice from other writers based on their own personal writing habits, I have heard numerous renditions on what up-coming or potential writers must do to cross the threshold into actualized writers. These examples tend to take a dogmatic approach to the process. For example, an established writer will say one, absolute method exists in order to write, which usually just happens to be the method that particular writer uses. I disagree with this. Even if I find the advice helpful, I disagree with the necessity of strict adherence to any singular process.
Journey through the imagination of a child Writing Bad is proud to present this compilation of children’s stories written by children. Take a moment to delve into the fictional worlds of animals across the world. Whether you’re journeying with a serval from Africa or fighting the world’s one and only, Bubble Monster, you’re sure to... Continue Reading →
So, you want to write a poem, but don’t know where to begin. Should it rhyme? Does it even have to rhyme? What about the different rules and poetry forms? Shrouded in more mystery than a school cafeteria lunch, it’s no wonder that writers can be somewhat hesitant to explore poetry.
Writer’s block. Every writer has dealt with it at some point (Stephen King claims he hasn’t but I’m calling bull), and it can be a huge deterrent when it comes to expressing yourself and getting your stories out. I will touch on some of the main issues that cause writer’s block, but the focus of this article is to explain how to push past the block and to go over the strategies I’ve personally found to be beneficial to me.
I remember the first time I saw "NaNoWriMo" mentioned in an online writer's forum. I immediately thought it must be some new, millennial slang term or text-cronym that I had yet to learn the meaning. So when I Googled it, I was thrilled to discover it instead to be an incredible, month-long challenge presented to writers everywhere: 50,000 words in 30 days.
All writers have experienced the first draft blues. The idea for the story came to us in a flurry of inspiration; the characters sauntered through our door, greeting us with their riveting personalities. Yet, as we sat down to write the story, the sentences stumbled and clanked together in an oafish web of prose. Too... Continue Reading →
It is a common fallacy that stories are driven by plot. The truth is, the stories that last are the ones driven by character. They're the ones where we've become so attached to the characters over the years, that we simply can't let them go, rather we continue to re-imagine these characters over and over again. Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield, Randle Patrick McMurphy-these characters are unforgettable, their traits carved into the memory of all readers who've met them just as if they had walked through the door and shook the reader's hand. These characters breathe and bleed upon the pages as the reader follows their stories in anticipation of what will become of them. How did their writers do it? What exactly is the perfect recipe for a character that bleeds?
It didn’t take long for me to realize that my first draft sucked with a capital “S.” Halfway through chapter one, I wanted to take it out back and beat it with a hockey stick for wasting my time. I’d like to say that this feeling dissipated as I got further into my first draft, that my confidence grew word by word, sentence by sentence. But I’d hate to lie to you. The truth is that I became more sure of the inevitable failure looming ahead of me, blocking my path to success.
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