An Introduction to Academic WritingAn Introduction to Academic Writing

Remember those essays and letters you had to write in school? Some people hated writing them, but others liked doing it. Essay writing, letter writing, story writing and dialogue writing all constitute the term academic writing.

Problem was, academic writing didn’t allow much creativity. Topics were already given. You had to have an outline. You had to keep your voice formal and precise. You had to have an introduction, three paragraphs of body and a conclusion. You were not allowed to go off topic. You were not allowed to do anything unusual or unconventional.

And you wondered why you couldn’t write anything at all.

Today, let’s forget the pain of academic writing and instead make it a joy to write. Today, we will study what essays and letters are, and how to write them effortlessly and with fun. So let’s start!

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Why You Should Write Like You Talk (And How I Defeated Writers’ Block)Why You Should Write Like You Talk (And How I Defeated Writers’ Block)

For a whole week, I was struck with writers’ block. I couldn’t write blog posts. Only blog posts. I could write fiction well. I could write essays and letters well. But blog posts and articles? No. I tried, tried and tried some more. And nothing happened.

I had about five post drafts waiting, each of them filled up with only three paragraphs. I had great ideas. I had great inspiration. The post was so good that I couldn’t wait to write it. However, when I opened that blank document and started to write, I got a feeling.

A vague feeling.

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Writing Tip: Finding the Balance of Narrative and DialogueWriting Tip: Finding the Balance of Narrative and Dialogue

In the world of fiction writing, there are many things to explore. Subplots, conflict, POV, characters, you name it. But have you heard of narrative and dialogue? If you’ve got a story, you’ve got to narrate it. If you’ve got a set of characters, they have to converse, i.e., talk. Talking in fiction writing is known as dialogue, and narrating or describing anything is known as narrative.

Now where’s the problem in that?

Too much of a good thing is usually a bad thing, and it applies here. Some writers use narrative a lot. Their characters aren’t talkers. It’s just page after page of narrative, how they did this, their journey, their perils, the people they met, the surroundings, and so on. All description. At which point your story looks like an essay which no one wants to read, rather than an amazing novel.

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What Do You Think of the New Logo?What Do You Think of the New Logo?

Logos have never been my strong point in design. But they help in branding, so I made a logo a month ago for this blog. However, the old one’s colours didn’t match perfectly with the website colour scheme, so I thought “well, I’ll make a completely different one.” So I recently made a new logo which replaced the old simplistic one.

This one stands out a little more. If you’re reading this via email or a feed reader, go to WritersTreasure.com to view the new logo.
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100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid: A Review100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid: A Review

100 Writing Mistakes to AvoidHi everyone, you just came here to see the first ever review on Writers’ Treasure. Are you aware of Daily Writing Tips? I had a guest post featured on there, and they recently launched an eBook: 100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid written by Maeve Maddox, the Editor-in-Chief. Now, in my opinion, anything that’s written by her is bound to be great and worth its price. But still I was sceptical, because I thought I knew all the common spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes of English. I turned out to be wrong.

Now, having read it, I’m as impressed as can be. It was a quick read, 45 pages long, and time flew when I was reading it, because I was so engrossed.

In short, the book was amazing.

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Writing Tip: The Importance of Word CountWriting Tip: The Importance of Word Count

Today’s writing tip is about the importance of word count. Boring word count. How can it matter? Most people don’t even know what it is, and those that do, think it’s just an “aside”. It doesn’t matter.

Or does it?

Let’s get that question out of the way. Yes, word count matters. It is an aside, yes, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. The fact that most readers don’t know about your word count doesn’t say that they don’t care. Knowing and caring about something is different, of course. Some people might not know the technical term. Maybe they don’t even think of it. But if you don’t have a suitable word count, hurry. You’ve got to fix it up, and fast.

But first things first: what is a word count?

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