Writing Tips
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How to Write an Acrostic Poem: Examples and Forms
If you’re a fan of steganography—the art of concealing messages in text—you might enjoy writing an acrostic poem. From the abecedarian to the golden shovel, acrostic poetry hijacks the poem’s use of line breaks. With this form, you can embed hidden meanings, derive inspiration, or simply have fun with the structure of poetry. Famous acrostic…
How to Write a Free Verse Poem: Writing Poetry Without Fixed Form
A free verse poem is a poem that doesn’t rely on any particular form, meter, or rhyme scheme, yet still conveys powerful feelings and ideas. Rather than letting a certain structure define the poem, the poet lets the poem structure itself through the interplay of language, sound, and literary devices. Wait a minute—poetry doesn’t have…
Flat Character vs. Round Character: Definitions and Examples
Every fictional person that populates books, movies, and plays falls into one of two categories: flat characters and round characters. Flat and round characters each fill important roles in works of fiction, and while this isn’t the only way to categorize fictional characters, it’s a useful distinction to help guide your own character writing. What…
From Our Instructors
Writing About Real People
Sneak Peek: This essay is excerpted from some of the materials I’ll be sharing in my class, “The Body and Soul of Your Memoir: Shape, Focus, and Write Your Memoir” at Writers.com starting October 21st. When my memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body,…
Learn to Write! 8 Tips on Learning How to Write
If you’re here, you want to learn to write—whether that’s poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or something in-between. Learning to write is a process, and it is something that writers learn and relearn throughout their lives. To quote Ernest Hemingway, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” But anyone can…
How to Become a Poet
If you’re here, you’re wondering how to become a poet. The good news is, anyone can learn to write poetry—and if you’ve ever written a poem before, you can already call yourself a poet. Even so, sitting down to put feelings to stanzas can seem impossible. With so many possibilities to tinker with language, where…
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Writing Prompts
Jump-start your creativity with our writing prompts. Check back regularly for new prompts!
Show and Tell
Write a story or poem about an object with a lot of nostalgic value for you/the narrator. Do not, at any point, tell the reader explicitly what this object is.
Forgive and Forget
Write a story or poem about a time when you had to forget something to maintain a friendship or relationship.
Trash Day
Collect pieces of “junk writing”—spam emails, credit card advertisements, roadside billboards, bumper stickers, etc. Then, write a story or poem that uses all of the junk writing you collected.