Writing Techniques

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An image of a woman smiling while scrolling on her phone with a coffee in hand suggesting austerity, enjoyment, peace from looking at writing memes

Writing Memes: Why Writers Love Sharing Them (And What They Secretly Teach Us)

If you spend enough time with writers on social media, you’ll soon learn one thing — we enjoy writing memes....

A woman touches a broken reflection, sultry, to suggest the character vs. self conflict in visual form

Character vs. Self Conflict

Character vs. Self is the conflict that strips all else away. There’s no central villain, no evil plot, no natural...

A woman directs a cameraman with a screenplay in hand to suggest that a writer can shine in a different format — What is a screenplay?

What is a Screenplay?

A screenplay is a script specifically written for film, TV, video games, or any other visual medium. It is not...

Two men paint the sides of a room in one story of a building to suggest the parts of a story as a physical relationship to one's own literature

Parts of a Story

“The most important part of a story is the piece of it you don’t know.”– Barbara Kingsolver In this article,...

A serene scene of a person standing on a wooden dock over calm water, evoking solitude in how to self-publish a book

How to Self-Publish a Book

On the topic of self‑publishing, conversations tend to involve the same handful of outcomes. You might have heard how Andy...

Turkish planes fly in formation to signify strength and might in the form of blitzkrieg writing

Blitzkrieg Writing: How to Outrun Your Inner Critic  

Blitzkrieg is not a word typically associated with the quiet, solitary act of writing. It conjures up images of brute...

Recent posts

Allusion

What is an Allusion? How to Enrich Your Story with Meaning

Stories become richer when they wink at the world beyond their pages, and that’s exactly what an allusion does. By...

rhetorical choices

Understanding Rhetorical Choices: Technique, Tone, and Purpose

Rhetorical choices shape not just what we say, but how we make people feel and think. Every speech, story, or...

motif

What is a Motif? A Writer’s Guide to Recurring Meaning

Motifs are one of the best literary devices you can have in your writer’s toolbox. Essentially, a motif is a...

Allegory

The Keys to Allegory: Building Symbolism That Lasts

An allegory is like taking a step back in an art gallery to analyze a painting in its entirety. Characters...

coming of age

Coming of Age: 2 Main Story Elements

Coming of age is never easy. You might have been the popular kid in school, armed with academic excellence, physical...

epigraph

Epigraph: A Clue to Your Story

Before a story begins, you can include an epigraph to signal your protagonist’s dilemma, the tone, and even foreshadow the...

rhetorical devices

Rhetorical Devices: The Art of Arguing

In the modern world where the town square is a digital place and the zeitgeist is a worldwide phenomenon, we...

literary devices

Literary Devices: A Writer’s Palette

Literary devices are the various techniques writers employ to create stylistic effects, convey deeper meaning, evoke emotion, and enhance the...

flashback

How to Write a Flashback: Techniques for Powerful Storytelling

Flashbacks are one of the most powerful tools you can use to reveal the deeper layers of a character’s life....

foreshadowing

What is Foreshadowing? Planting Clues for a Powerful Payoff

Foreshadowing is a key element in creating a satisfying conclusion to a story. This is the craft of planting quiet...

dramatic irony

Harness the Power of Dramatic Irony

A powerful way to shift the perspective of your audience is to employ dramatic irony. This literary device lets the...

Situational Irony

How to Create Situational Irony

Situational irony is something we’ve all experienced: an unexpected outcome or an outcome that’s the opposite of the intention. We...

Muse

Invocation of the Muse: Cultivating Inspiration for Serious Writers

The idea of a Muse, inspiration, spirit, or genius, is present in any civilization in which great literature exists. When...

Verbal Irony

The Art of Verbal Irony: When to Quip and When to Feel

Verbal irony is a wonderful rhetorical device you can use to sharpen your character’s tongues and refine their wit. In...

epilogue

Epilogue: Extending Theme Beyond the Last Page

Just when you thought a story was done, sometimes there’s still room for an epilogue.  Stories often end with a...

Chekhov’s Gun

Chekhov’s Gun: A Foreshadowing Tool

Are all endings inevitably set by their beginnings, or do things occur at random? This question is, in part, answered...

Personification

Personification as a Literary Tool: Writing Emotion without Telling

Personification is a literary device so commonplace that it shows up everywhere in our language. The dictionary definition of personification...

Imagery

Imagery: Writing with All 5 Senses

As writers and engineers of stories, imagery is our bread and butter. In some sense, all the literary devices at...