Your ultimate resource for

How To Write


More Topics:   #mountains   #russia   #parks   #australia   #new york

Focus on How To Write

While there is a big focus on travel writing in this section, you can also find tips on press trips, writing queries, getting published, and working with editors.  Articles on narrative essays, building plot, and anecdotes round this guide out for a one-stop shop on all genres and purposes.

Introducing MatadorU: Accelerating the Careers of Travel Writers

Popular  13 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   After 8 months of work, Matador launches its first educational component, a training course for travel writers at all levels of their careers.  More »

Start Your Travel Writing With A Bang

Popular  2 Comments

SPIRIT:   ...  More »

How to Bag Your 9 to 5 Job and Write / Travel Full Time

Popular  26 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Since quitting my 9-to-5 job as the assistant director of a mental health agency in 2004 and becoming a full-time traveler and writer, many people have remarked that they envy my lifestyle. What they don’t recognize is that they can create the same kind of life for themselves by following a relatively simple set of steps, which I’ll share with you here.  More »

6 Steps To Succeed As A Travel Writer Abroad

Popular  10 Comments

SPIRIT:   ...  More »

Notes on How Not to Write a Book

Popular  19 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   "I went to Chile knowing that this was the moment I would really have to start writing a book, which was a rotten feeling."  More »

13 Simple Journalist Techniques For Effective Interviews

Popular  17 Comments

SPIRIT:   ...  More »

The 10 Steps to Becoming a Successful Travel Writer

Popular  5 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   If you're reading this and following these steps, you're already on the way.  More »

10 Steps to Surviving Your First Press Trip

Popular  4 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Organizing beforehand is everything. Learn how.   More »

Expert Travel Writing Tips from Mark Moxon

Popular  2 Comments

SPIRIT:   ...  More »

Marketing Language and Youth: 2 Thoughts on Travel Writing Style

Popular  7 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Here's how you can avoid sounding like your travel writing came up through the marketing dept at your local ad agency.   More »

3 MORE Things to Never Tell an Editor

Popular  18 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   A peek inside a Matador editor’s inbox…and what you can learn from it.  More »

3 Sites that Get You Writing Now!

Popular  8 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Here are three websites so full of writing prompts, collaborations, games and exercises you have no choice but to write.   More »

8 Ways of Seeing People that Can Sabotage Your Writing

Popular  21 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   The way you write begins with the way that you look at the world, at people.  More »

10 Words and Phrases We Never Want to See in Travel Writing Again

Popular  111 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   These words and phrases have been used too much in travel writing. They're tired. Let them rest. Please.  More »

How to Improve Your Travel Writing with Anecdotes

Popular  2 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   An anecdote works best when it returns the reader to the story with a new sense of understanding or awareness of the characters.   More »

2 Powerful Techniques To Illuminate Your Travel Writing

Popular  14 Comments

SPIRIT:   ...  More »

How to Get the Most Mileage Out of Your Travel Writing

Popular  6 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   From concept to pitch to publication, maximizing readership is about reaching out personally through the internet.  More »

Kelsey Timmerman: So You Want to Be an Author?

Popular  14 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   "Everyone knew my desire to write, not because I was talking about it all of the time, but because I was doing it. "  More »

Write Spontaneously to Unleash your Inner Creativity

Popular  7 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Writing spontaneously & without judgment can strengthen creativity and destroy writers block.  More »

Travel Stories: Knowing When to Pitch to an Editor and When to Blog

Popular  2 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   How do you decide?  More »

11 Magazines, Journals, and Blogs Every Travel Writer Should Know About

Popular  19 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Travel writing tends to get pigeonholed. Here are sites and publications that promote the kind of writing--call/categorize it what you want--we like to read at Matador.   More »

4 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Getting Published

Popular  15 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   The biggest problem writers face when trying to get published is getting emotional about the whole process, being reactive instead of proactive.   More »

Write Spontaneously to Unleash your Inner Creativity

Popular  7 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Writing spontaneously & without judgment can strengthen creativity and destroy writers block.  More »

15 Immortal Opening Lines

Popular  15 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Opening lines have to be good, but sometimes they almost seem immortal.  More »

How to Write a Letter

Popular  8 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   There is something about a handwritten letter that cannot be touched for all of our technical prowess. The tactile sensation of the paper. The swirl of the script. Nothing will ever replace it.   More »

Travel Writing as Punk Rock: 15 Vital Matador Narratives

Popular  14 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   You don't mistake travel writing for punk rock. Most of it just isn’t loud or raw enough. But not all.   More »

How to Write Narrative Essays Using Scenes

Popular  10 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Like movies, narrative essays are built out of scenes. Here's how.  More »

How to Write an Attention-Getting Query

Popular  15 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   These two queries show all you have to do to get an editor's attention.  More »

Four Ways To Sound Like A Jerk In Your Travel Writing (And How To Avoid Them)

Popular  27 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   How can you write about your amazing adventures without sounding like a showoff?  More »

Use Hemingway to Improve Your Travel Writing

Popular  14 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   How Hemingway's Iceberg model of a good story will improve your travel writing.   More »

How To Be A Writer in One Fantastically Simple Step

Popular  11 Comments

LIFE:   People often ask me how to become a writer, and over the years it occurs to me the answer is far simpler than most expect. One simple secret that will turn you instantly into the writer you want to be.  More »

Four Ways To Sound Like A Jerk In Your Travel Writing (And How To Avoid Them)

Popular  27 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   How can you write about your amazing adventures without sounding like a showoff?  More »

How do you advance as a writer?

Popular  17 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Matador editors offer some advice to an aspiring travel writer who asks: How do you get noticed and advance in this profession?  More »

3 Writing Styles that Kill Your Authenticity

Popular  20 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   These three common marketing 'constructions' completely kill your storytelling authenticity.  More »

How to Write Better: 2 Thoughts on Self Awareness

Popular  8 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   As a writer I'm sometimes wondering what editors are thinking. As an editor, I'm often wondering what writers are thinking. Here are a few thoughts on writing and the idea of 'self-awareness'.   More »

Writing Tips: Tricky Words to Use Correctly and Make an Editor Smile

Popular  17 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   The English language is full of traps for writers--here are some to avoid in your professional writing.  More »

Thoughts on Plot by Famous Writers

Popular  3 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Notable writers on plot structure, plot development, and the plot of our lives.  More »

What Transformers 2 and Terminator Salvation Can Teach About Bad Storytelling

Popular  8 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   It’s no secret, Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2 are flimsy, mind-numbing movies. So what can be learned from their storytelling failures?  More »

5 Techniques for Writing Bilingual Dialogue

Popular  10 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Suggestions for recreating dialogue that ocurred in more than one language.   More »

Use Hemingway to Improve Your Travel Writing

Popular  14 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   How Hemingway's Iceberg model of a good story will improve your travel writing.   More »

How to Write Better By Exercising Your Observation Skills

Popular  13 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   How to deepen your ability to find and tell stories by strengthening your skills in observing the interactions between people. 3 exercises.   More »

50+ Travel Magazines That Want To Publish Your Writing

Popular  57 Comments

SPIRIT:   ...  More »

Material Transparency: manifesto on a writer's personal brand

Popular  10 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Material Transparency is an underpinning or ethic of a writer's personal brand.  More »

Writing Tips: How to Avoid Sounding Ridiculous When Using Quotes

Popular  10 Comments

TRAVEL WRITING:   Quotes can add dynamic elements to your story, or kill it almost instantly.  More »

9 Things I Learned About Travel Writing At Book Passage

Popular  7 Comments

SPIRIT:   ...  More »

Get Matador in your inbox and around the web.

Sign up for our FREE weekly newsletter.


View full list of RSS feeds



Matadorians who know #how to write

Julie Schwietert Collazo

"One of Matador's senior editors and a contributor to numerous publications "


Hal Amen

"Co-editor of Matador Trips and years of experience in freelance writing"


Jenny Williams

"Currently News Editor at Ethical Travel and a freelance writer/editor."


Laura McNamara

"A web savvy new media journalist who has blogged her way through more than 20 countries"



Links


  • MatadorU - Learn travel writing at the U!
  • Wordpress - The home of the blog. Everything you need to get online and writing