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!
Year of Fearless Writing – MFA? OMG.
Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing! You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway? Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to...
Sing me a song
Poetry is music is poetry It's kind of a no-brainer, right? Music and poetry go hand in hand: they are both designed to appeal to the emotions. More precisely, a poet or musician is attempting to manipulate your emotions so that you feel what they want you to feel....
A sevenling for the eighth month
After July's longish form, we thought it might be time to take a break in August with a short poetry form called the sevenling. But you're not off the hook: everything you know about metaphor, connection, and structure is still important. And like July's poetry slam,...
Year of Fearless Writing – Pitch Perfect
Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing! You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway? Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to...
Year of Fearless Writing – So what do you write?
Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing! You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway? Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to...
She Had Some Horses
The 23rd poet laureate consultant in poetry (that's the actual title) of the United States is as American as they come: Tulsa, Oklahoma, resident Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. She's the first Native American to hold the title, and this July...
An archipelago of poems
Happy Independence Day! Here in the U.S.A. we're not supposed to be celebrating until July, but someone on my block broke out the fireworks last weekend and got me thinking about parties. So this month, June, we're going to celebrate Independence Day early right on...
Year of Fearless Writing: Networking On- and Offline
Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing! You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway? Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to...
Year of Fearless Writing: Your Bio and Website
Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing! You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway? Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to...
Clair de lune
Big ideas in tiny packages If you're a fan of our microprose challenge, you know the joy—and the pain—of squeezing an entire narrative into a very limited number of words. It's a matter of distilling your stories, reducing them down to their basic elements, to create...
Welcome to National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and you know what that means! Actually, no, you don't, because honestly we are not well-organized adults all the time and for at least the past few years we've dropped the ball on doing something cool for National Poetry Month. Well not...
Year of Fearless Writing: Finding and Forming Critique Groups
Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing! You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway? Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to...
Year of Fearless Writing: Finding and Working With an Editor
Welcome to the Year of Fearless Writing! You write. I mean, that's why you're here. But how often do you say "I'm a writer?" And what's the difference between "I write" and "I'm a writer" anyway? Over the last five years, YeahWrite--besides being a great place to...
Tech Talk: Synesthesia
I see. It's a phrase most of us use frequently, and it has nothing to do with eyesight. What other common ways do we explore and play with sense in our writing? This month, instead of delving into a new poetry form, we're going to dial it back a notch (see?) (wait,...
Arting about art
Welp, it's February again, which means I'm locked into my annual quest to find something that's not a frickin sonnet for our poetry slam. Not that there's anything wrong with sonnets (and in fact, I'm going to let you write a sonnet this month if that's your jam) but...