Category: Writing Tips
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How to Edit Writing Like a Professional: 14 Tips for Editing Stories
If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you’ll know from the advice of more seasoned writers that editing is an essential step in making your work shine. All writers know in their heads that editing is necessary, but often our hearts rebel. We frequently love the writing process—expressing ourselves on the page and…
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10 Books to Improve Your Creative Writing Skills
If you’re looking to improve your creative writing skills, there’s no better place to start than reading. Reading helps us to learn concepts consciously and sometimes even learn new skills unconsciously as we pick up the stylistic choices of the authors we read. So it’s no wonder that we need to choose the books we…
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Do Synonyms Exist? And Can They Help Us Write Well?
“Any suggestions for a word we should look up in the thesaurus?” I asked, marker in hand as I turned to look at my English as a Second Language (ESL) class. All six adults, from varied places like India, Colombia, and Taiwan, stared back at me in silence as they tried to think of an…
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Changing the Big Picture: The Storytelling Mindset
Raise your hand if anyone’s ever told you to “focus on the big picture” 🙋‍♀️ This refrain usually comes from well-meaning friends at a time when our minds are scampering around like a squirrel and our anxiety kicks in and we probably need a massage because we’re just so stressed and CAN’T DECIDE WHAT ROUTE…
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Free Your Story: How Writing like a Sculptor Creates Your Best Work
When most people think of creative pursuits like writing, they think of it as making something out of nothing–inventing a tale through placing words on a page. And this is true. Like painters, writers are usually tasked with turning a blank canvas into something beautiful and wonderful and life-changing. Any writer can tell you the…
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Secrets of Storytelling: How to Write What You See
In today’s world—saturated with all sorts of pictures, TV shows, movies, and other visual media—it can be easy to forget the visual power of words. Long before any sort of visual media could be captured and replayed for our entertainment, people were telling stories to one another in an oral tradition that continues even up…
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When Signs Go Wrong: Why Proofreading is Important
This past weekend, I found myself on a hike at the beautiful Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in Southern California. With the brisk air biting at my face and the strong winds turning my hair into a Medusa-like mess, I sought refuge in the tiny Miner’s Cabin near Stonewall Mine. Like the Flying Dutchman, I have…
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How to Choose a Narrative Voice
Choosing a narrative voice is a very important part of any story, and should be a choice you consciously make—not just a choice that happens by mistake. Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be a difficult choice! Here’s a quick look at which narrative voice you should choose based on your goals for your writing. First-Person…
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3 Exercises to Improve Your Creative Travel Writing
When it comes to creative travel writing, it’s important to know some of the frameworks and storytelling techniques that will help you write a captivating story. But once you have the knowledge, it’s time to apply it. Here are three exercises that will help improve your creative travel writing! Exercise 1: Judgments vs. Observations This…
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How to Bring Your Experiences to Life Through Creative Travel Writing
So you’ve just had a life-changing travel experience. Then you get home, and you can’t figure out how to write it down. Everything you write sounds cheesy. It falls flat. So instead you cave and just write a list of things to do in XYZ or places to see in XYZ. But you know a…