Writing Help
Looking for a few extra tips and tricks or craft hints? You’ve found YeahWrite’s Writing Help archive. Below, you’ll see a collection of the posts we think you’ll find helpful. Besides our monthly Nonfiction Know-How and Poetry Slams, we’ve included posts from past workshops, guest authors, classes, and the times one or another of our editors added some in-depth knowledge during a routine weekly post. Be sure to check out our favorite post: the one that defines the “so what.” Whether you write fiction, nonfiction, or correspondence, your reader should never be left asking… so what? We’ve also collected our best of the best posts about constructive criticism in one place, because writing help is also about helping each other write. Good luck, and happy writing!
Get it? Got it? Sonnet!
It's February, and you know what that means: sonnets. Has it really been a year since I wrote that how to write a sonnet post? Whoa. Well, I still don't want to write it all again, so I suggest you open that little link in a separate window. This year...
Look deep into my… navel?
In the span of a breath, everything changes. We all have our moments of epiphany. Cataclysmic shifts in personality, thought structure, aha or eureka moments. We also all change slowly, over time, as we develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around...
The hook brings you back
"What's a so what?" Of all the requirements for a good nonfiction essay, the so what can be the most elusive, and not just because it's not a term that most people have heard before. In fact, one way of describing the "so what" in a more technical way is "the hook"...
Day breaks… my heart
Ah, January. A time of hope, excitement, and looking forward... but also a time of bittersweet farewell to last year. That's why January is a perfect time to focus on learning to write an aubade. Since we've been working on forms for a year now, I thought it would be...
Tri harder
If you've been around yeah write for a while, you've probably seen this month's poetry slam form, the tritina, or its big sister the sestina, popping up on the fiction|poetry grid here and there. It's not entirely my fault, but I do love a good tritina,...
Why? Why? Why?
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In my part of the world, as I write this, we are slowly lurching on toward Winter Solstice. Midwinter, traditionally, not the "start" of winter that modern calendars like. Yule. The shortest day of the year. Like most natural...
What a feeling
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]No, wait. Not Flashdance. Flashback. Although some of you may have had a flashback when I said Flashdance. Ugh, I'm talking in circles already; time for coffee. I turned the pot on an hour ago, but the funniest thing happened... See...
Lost in Translation
You remember when I did that thing to you with the dróttkvætt? I'm about to do it again, but gently, and with love. This month's poetry slam focuses on love, and before you chide me for being out of season let me remind you that this month is exactly nine months after...
Everything is the actual worst
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I don't know what it was about this past week, but it was the worst. Everyone in my house was sick. The dachshund hurt his back. The other dog picked a fight with both cats. I was sick. Nothing got done and the house was a mess. But...
You talkin to me?
Hey you. Yeah, you. Over here. Psst. C'mere. Want to buy a... love letter? Of course you don't. As much as it's awesome to get feedback on your work, nobody actually enjoys finding out that there's more work to do on a post before it's ready for publication. So I...
Presto, change-o!
Are you tired of the fiction|poetry grid getting all the love? Yeah, me too. Nonfiction – essays, memoirs, and creative nonfiction of all types – was one of my first loves, and I’ll be clinging to it with my cold, inkstained fingers before I quit writing...
Riddle me this…
[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text]I love our poetry slams. I love learning new forms, trying something I haven't tried before, and putting it out there into the world for other writers to look at and help me focus on. But I thought we'd try something a...
Noir is the New Black
Noir. To the Francophones among us, it's just a word. No, seriously, English language, why you gotta do us like that? But it was a French movie critic, Nino Frank, who introduced the term "film noir" ("black film") in 1946 to describe the new genre of...
Godzilla vs. Poetry
Imagine your life was a musical. I don't care if the image that comes to mind is Hollywood or Bollywood, you get what I mean. At appropriate moments all the characters stop talking, turn to each other, and start singing what they mean instead. This is the basic theory...
One Myth to Rule Them All
Do you ever feel like you're reading the same story again and again, with just a few elements changed? Chances are, you have been - and that's a good thing. Like that moment when you figure out that every song that's been popular in the past 30 years is just...