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: Finding a Home for Your Work
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: Submissions Spreadsheets
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...
Blank you, you blanking blankity-blank
Building Blocks December was the season of gifting, and boy did I end up getting a lot of building-themed presents for the kids in my life. Whether you’re working with Legos or Minecraft, it’s still popular to make big things out of little things – and then, um, make...
Prologue: The Year of Fearless Writing
To be a writer is to be fearless. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But let’s face it: how many of us really write without fear? Mhm, thought so. Writing - whether it's a personal essay or a fantasy story - makes us vulnerable, and that’s terrifying. There is...
The State of Poetry in 2018
How long was this year, anyway? There is a little cluster of memes going around this internet - maybe you've seen one - about how 2018 is the year where linear time stopped making any sense. For example, Black Panther came out this year, but like, does...
Let’s get meta!
Metaphors! (and similes, which are metaphors using the words "like" or "as") Metaphors are great. They can help us describe the indescribable, connect the dots between reader and character (or author), and give tone and shape to a story or essay. They can...
Un-sestina-ble!
It's my birthday and I'll poem if I want to. Um, and you can join me if you want to. November is one of my favorite months, for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons. But this year it's even more favoriter (I can make up words if I want, too) because our...
Joy Writing
I don't know about you, but I get bored no matter what I'm doing, if I do it long enough. Even if it's writing. My favorite characters start staggering drunkly across the page, my intricate plots begin to dissolve, and my settings go cardboard-flat. But I...
Casting Call
Raise your hand if you had fun with last month's poetry slam, the Golden Shovel. For me, part of the fun was going through other people's poetry, looking for those perfect lines that spoke to me, and then figuring out how I could speak through them. When...
YeahWrite #388 Weekly Writing Challenge: Popular Vote Winners
The last refuge of pedantry Tired of people lording it over you because you used "less" where you should have used "fewer?" Fear no more, reader! I've got your back. It's confusing, because the opposites of both words, are the same: MORE. The YeahWrite Super Challenge...
Can you dig it?
This month's writing prompts are all about opening lines, but I'm still on my terminal words kick. Tritinas, diminishing poems, what's an editor in need of a poetry slam to do? Our September poetry slam takes a page out of Terrance Hayes' book - literally,...
Who do you think you are
I'm sorry in advance for all the earworms this post is about to contain. We're going to be talking through some potentially scary and also potentially boring material and this is going to help us get through. OK? Fine. Well, as the song says, Come on and...
Let me explain… No, it takes too long. Let me sum up.
We've spent the last three months talking about how to write about other people's writing. Let's spend August talking about how to write about our own. Whether you're pitching a novel or entering a competition, you'll need to be able to evaluate and...
The Incredible Shrinking Poem
Last month we held onto our burdens; this month let's lighten them a little with diminishing verse. Ordinarily I'd put a big ol' explanation of where diminishing verse comes from right here, but honestly there really isn't one. It's just a bunch of poets...
Writing About Writing – Part III
What a feeling Okay, folks. We've hit the third part of our Writing about Writing series, so it's time for a few quick flashbacks. First, we reminded you that as you read through the story you're about to critique, you should keep three questions in mind:...