And then he saw...Blah, Blah, Blah

They should make more of these.

Brevity is Key

Shorter is always better when it comes to writing. Makes things less redundant, faster to read, cheaper to publish. The benefits of brevity are overwhelming.

So, keep your work as tight as possible.

A Common Error 

I see many writers making a common mistake these days. Even professionals.

Don't push the red button.

When you're writing from one character's POV you don't have to tell me "he looked," or "he felt," or "he heard." I already know that. Everyone knows that.

We're in the character's head. If a car is being described, we know he or she is looking at it. If its engine roars, we know he or she is listening. If its door handle is smooth, we know he or she is feeling.

Why state the obvious? Why state it multiple times?

There's no reason. Don't even waste time coordinating your brain cells to find one.

It's Better

In case you're still tempted to write all those things I just said you shouldn't, let's look at a few examples.(Actually, let's just look at one.)

Bad Way: "He looked at the black car, heard its engine roar, felt the wind lash out at him as it sped past. He coughed, tasting the black exhaust on his tongue."

(Wow. That was just horrible)

Good way: "The black car sped past him, engine roaring, its trail of wind lashing out. He coughed, black exhaust on his tongue."

(That was so beautiful.)

Concession

To be fair, there is nothing "wrong" about using "he/she looked" or "he/she heard," or "he/she felt," when describing the POV. That's why most writers do it. Why they keep doing it.

But there is NOTHING effective about it.

So unless you are describing other characters, avoid those phrases like a rattle snake in the desert.

And keep your writing tight. Keep your writing great.

It may look nice. It isn't.

Getting Back Into The Game

We all have our lives. Unless you are a full time professional writer, things will come up now and then that will prevent you from writing for days, weeks, sometimes even months. And even full time authors will face delays sometimes (ex: vacation, sick days, etc).

When you take a long break, you may find that once you try to restart your writing, you don't  restart at the same level you left off with. Today, I will teach you how to come back most effectively.

Conceptually speaking, writing is something between working out and math.

The Popular Kid

One of the easiest ways to make a character likable to your readers is to make him (or her) likable to other characters.

Why does this work? Simple.

A popular character is praised by others. Praise is something that most human beings desire and want for themselves. If a character is popular, he/she is fulfilling the readers wish to be popular.

Remember wish fulfillment? It's important that your character doesn't abuse the wish. If he's/she's popular, he/she should not use his popularity to achieve cruel or selfish things.

Likable Characters

Likable Characters

How do you create likable characters?

First, let's discern the difference between a likable character and an interesting character. A likable character is someone you would like to have as a friend. An interesting character is someone you want to know more about because of their importance to the plot. Often, effective villains are not likable but are still interesting. First, let's focus on how to make a character likable.

Universal Qualities

It is widely accepted that there are certain characteristics among people that are appealing. These appealing qualities are things we as human beings respect and wish that we could have as well. These qualities are universal and here are the major ones:

Story Generator

So you want to write a book, but you don't know what to make it about? Simple. Follow this process and you'll have an awesome story idea by the end.

I recommend you have some paper with you or an opened word document. This will help you write down your ideas.

First pick a genre. I recommend one that you don't usually write. Why? That will be explained later. But just pick a genre--one that you don't usually write in but still like.

I picked the Heist genre.

Try and Fail Cycles

A Try and Fail Cycle is, basically, a rule that says your protagonist must fail at least twice at doing something before they can succeed. Sometimes these failures are hidden as successes.

For example, (Warning: Matrix spoilers follow. If you haven't seen this movie yet, go and do that now. It's awesome.) in the end of the Matrix you have Neo beating up a bunch of bad guys. Even though he beats them up, never is his problem solved right after. He still does not rescue Morpheus. He goes through at least two of these fights, and then he has a third fight after which Morpheus is saved. This is an example of a Try and Fail cycle hidden by success.

So, your story should take the shape of these cycles. Here is how.

Problem: Your character encounters a problem, like Morpheus is kidnapped.

Planning: Your character has an emotional reaction to this problem and then makes a plan to fix it.

Then one of two things happen. Either the problem is:

Fixed, but now there is a new problem that is even worse.

The Problem

Hey guys,

Here are more tips on writing. These focus on "The Problem."

"The Problem" is the major overarching problem that your characters are trying to solve. Basically, once they have solved this problem, the book is over, or once they have failed at solving it, the book is over. And I mean like they completely failed.

Now, a story should have one of these major problems. As discussed before each plot has its own problem, however you really want to identify what "The Problem" is going to be. Which means what is the one problem that is resolved in the end, and thus feels like the most important problem? Because if this problem is fixed last, this suggests that this is in fact the hardest of the problems. This hardest, resolved last problem is "The Problem."

Grammatical Pests: Guide One

Part of the fluidity of a narrative comes from the accuracy with which it is written. While elements of content like character development, thematic depth and a measured pace are undoubtedly paramount, the quality of a reading material is also dictated by the care put into the language itself. Grammar will usually not make or break a story, but mistakes in that department can certainly distract the reader from the big picture and detract from personal style. Not to mention, editors and publishers will frequently regard the work as unprofessional if it is littered with usage problems and unsightly punctuation misuses.

That being said, even the greatest of writers break rules of grammar and do so more frequently that one would think. But they also have the right to do as much; as Mark Twain quipped, “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” It is therefore important to learn the rules and to make sure that grammatical errors become necessary exceptions as opposed to nipping pests. This guide, the first in a series, may consequently serve as a grammatical pesticide to help you do away with these errors.

First, some terminology:

Killing Characters

So you want to kill off some of your characters. (Wow, you're evil.) How do you do it effectively?

Hmm...

Before we get to that, let's learn a rule of writing successful stories.

You can kill a POV (aka a point of view character).

You can kill a protagonist (aka a hero of your story).

You cannot kill a POV protagonist (Oops).

Here's why:

A POV is the character who the reader imagines him or herself as. When this character is hurt the readers feel the pain. However, since a POV is not a protagonist, they don't care about him or her. So they don't mind if this character is hurt or dies.

Readers care about the protagonist. However, if he or she does not have a point of view, they do not feel the pain that the protagonist feels. This means it is okay for them to die, though it is still more hurtful than killing off a POV.

Wide Audience

So you want your book to appeal to a wide audience? How?

Let me say this first. Character likability has nothing to do with appealing to a wide audience. (Yes, you should have likable characters. That's a must in order to have any audience. But that's not how you appeal to a wide audience.)  Why? Because the likable qualities are universal and already appeal to everyone. So what does have to do with appealing to a wide audience?

Genres:

Primarily the genres of children, young adult, adult, and feminist.

Did you notice how all of those are either an age group or a sex? Yes? Good.

That's because the way to attract a wide audience is to appeal to a wide number of age groups. If your writing fantasy, its going to be nearly impossible for you to get a horror reader to read your book. But you can get all of the young, middle, and older fantasy readers to read it. That's a huge chunk of the market.

Length

Sup guys. Today, I would like to talk about something that isn’t as commonly discussed as plot and characters, but that is still a very big issue in writing—one that can cause writer’s blocks, wasted nights, and rejection letters.

I am referring of course to length—of what? Well, of anything that goes in your book and the book itself. Most people worry about chapter lengths, but there are other aspects to consider too: act length, paragraph length, sentence length, and word length.

So I’ll start with the big one. Chapter length. Every writer that has accomplished anything has at one point asked himself: “Is this too long or too short? Crap.”

Plots

 Plots. What are they?


Stories have plots. For without plots, nothing would happen. In fact, another word for plot, is storyline. Does that clear a few things up? Awesome. 

And if it does not, lets call plots series of events, focused around specific subjects. Like separate DNA strands, intertwining to create genetically modified beasts.
Sounds cool, doesn't it? Lets proceed.

Dialogue

So what exactly is dialogue?

Why dialogue, is a conversation between two or more people. Or just one person with himself, which would be internal dialogue. It is the main way of communication between your characters, and the life and blood of most novels.

How your characters communicate is what shows their personality and by extension it defines your characters. It does so much stronger than thoughts, and sometimes even stronger than actions (although actions do speak louder than words). This may not be obvious, I know it wasn’t to me. But it is.

Inspiration

What is inspiration?