The Best Articles in Writing
The most useful articles and videos in Writing from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Writing Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Writing by Refind users in 2023 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
Drawing for writers: Procreate 101
Even if you have never drawn before, we'll teach you how to draw and make your articles stand out using Procreate. Salman Ansari (https://letter.salman.io) a...
Writing Tips: The 6 Quickest Ways To Become A Better Writer
There are a lot of writing tips out there, but the ones I share here only take a minute to master and will help you become a better writer forever.It's an ex...
Everything You Need To Know About Becoming (Or Hiring) A Freelance Writer
This is a special “Flip the Script” episode! Instead of answering a guest’s questions, host Josh Spector brings on an expert he wants to learn from and asks ...
How to ...?
How to Write Concisely
It’s not the end of the world if you use an unnecessary word now and then, write the occasional overlapping sentence, or tell us what you’re doing in a sentence before you do it. But the extra words…
«But your readers don’t necessarily need to follow the journey you took while you were drafting the document. They just need to know where you ended up.»
How to Write Usefully
February 2020What should an essay be? Many people would say persuasive. That's what a lot of us were taught essays should be. But I think we can aim for something more ambitious: that an essay should…
«Useful writing tells people something true and important that they didn't already know, and tells them as unequivocally as possible.»
How to Develop Any Idea Into a Great Story
Even stories that start with brilliant strokes of inspiration too often fizzle out before we reach The End. Use this four-step method to develop your best ideas to their fullest.
«No matter your starting point—a love story, buddy tale, mystery, quest—you can do like the great innovators do: Bend it. Amp it. Drive it. Strip it.»
How To Take Smart Notes: 10 Principles to Revolutionize Your Note-Taking and Writing
I long ago stopped reading books on note-taking. They were always too vague and boring, full of platitudes that had little to do with the world outside academia. I especially avoided “how-to” style…
How to write the perfect sentence
Orwell advised cutting as many words as possible, Woolf found energy in verbs, and Baldwin aimed for ‘a sentence as clean as a bone’. What can we learn from celebrated authors about the art of writing well?
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Writing on Refind.
Playing Piano (Badly) Relieved Me of Perfectionism
In search of calm, a writer embraces her musical mediocrity.
Substack and the Writing Long-Game
Thoughts on slow and diligent writing while balancing the demands of the platform
«We need to be vigilant about how our message is being shaped by our medium, and watch for signs that that shaping is changing our voice beyond our recognition.»
Stop Leading Zeros with Leximited Notation
Ever hit the issue where you want numbered items to alphabetically order themselves numerically, so you lead them with zeros, which works until you have more digits than zeros. Leximited notation…
What Emojis Can’t Express: How Handwriting Reveals Our True Selves
When I was in fifth grade, our class was joined by a boy who had the most exquisite handwriting. It was astonishing to watch, and worse, he had no idea how good he was at it. Penmanship in elementa…
«There is a term used by both educators and forensic analysts, graphic maturity, that refers to the point when our handwriting stops looking childish.»
AI vs. Hollywood: Writers battle “plagiarism machines” in union talks
WGA writers don't want to train AI or clean up AI-generated "sloppy first drafts."
«The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is seeking to restrict the use of generative AI in writing film and TV scripts as part of an ongoing strike, reports Reuters. The concerns come at a time when anxiety over the economic impact of tech like ChatGPT looms large in the minds of many.»
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Writing—all under 10 minutes.
Proprioceptive writing: a method for embodied self-reflection
Proprioceptive writing is a self-reflection method combining meditation and writing, two of the most effective ways to tap into the inner self.
«This process combines meditation and writing, two of the most effective ways to tap into the inner self.»
90% of My Skills Are Now Worth $0
...but the other 10% are worth 1000x
The Costs of Becoming a Writer
After years of hard work and low pay, the risks I took to work in publishing are finally paying off. But now, I wonder about the price my family paid, and whether it was too steep.
Think You Can’t—You’re Right
How to flip your can’t-switch to I can, from I’m not good enough to I’m worthy of success.
Fortune Cookie Writers May Be Losing Their Jobs to A.I.
Fortune cookie companies are outsourcing the labor-intensive process of writing fortunes to artificial intelligence.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Writing.
Baroque, Purple, and Beautiful: In Praise of the Long, Complicated Sentence
The meter-tall stone that has come to be called the Mesha Stele, its smooth, black basalt carved some sixteen centuries before it was unearthed from the packed, red sand of Dhiban, Jordan in 1868, …
Unraveling the Most Legendary Writers’ Room Story Ever
“Who Jackie?” has been retold in comedy circles for nearly 30 years — much to the surprise of the Roseanne writer who said it.
ChatGPT and the Future of the Professions
Professionals must learn to work with the machines or they will be replaced by them.
«ChatGPT and the Future of the Professions»
The elements of scientific style
Scientific papers are dense, jargon-filled, and painful to read. It wasn’t always this way – and it doesn’t have to be.
«Journals are increasingly seen as a point of friction in science as opposed to what they used to be: a tool to facilitate communication»
Why Write? - The Paris Review
“I’ve been collecting these theories of why writers write because so many writers have written about it.”
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Writing, including:

Stephen King
Author

Grammar Girl is also @grammargirl@zirk.us
Mignon Fogarty. Podcaster. Language lover. NYT bestselling author. Quick & Dirty Tips founder. @grammargirl@zirk.us
Darren Rowse
Speaker, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Muser & Founder of @ProBlogger & @DigitalPS. Hubby to @Stylensh + dad to 3 boys.

Madam Grammar
Professor, editor, grammar evangelist. Finding the joy in language and walking the fine red line between prescriptivism and descriptivism. She/her.
Writer's Digest
Writers helping writers since 1920. Writer's Digest, WD University, WD Annual Conference & more. Published by Active Interest Media. #WDC20 #WritingCommunity
Publications
We monitor hundreds of publications, blogs, newsletters, and news sources in Writing, including:
Literary Hub
A daily literary website highlighting the best in contemporary fiction, nonfiction, and criticism.
Every 📧
We publish smart, thoughtful essays on business and personal development. Our mission is to feed the minds and hearts of the people who build the internet.
Open Culture
Find our daily culture posts on http://openculture.com, Mastodon, Bluesky and Post. Not here.
Poynter
We're a school for journalism and democracy. Contact: info@poynter.org / 727-821-9494
Austin Kleon
NYTimes bestselling author of STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST and other books. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter & log off this hellsite: http://austinkleon.substack.com
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