When I’m writing an article or a chapter in a book, I often have ten or twelve tabs pulled up on my browser as well as a few books open in front of me, all of them research and resources to make my writing better, more detailed, more lifelike. Writers bring information to people...
How you expect the story to end should inform every scene and chapter. It may change, evolve, and grow as you andyour charactersdo, but never leave it to chance. Keep yourlead charactercenter stage to the very end. Everything he learns through all the complications you plunged hi...
Try writing prompts for practice and a change of pace. There are many online sites for these prompts.This oneis promising. I can’t get started Writing a book is a big undertaking, and there’s more than one way to do it. You could spend years pondering all your options. Possible Solu...
Creating a scene list changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too. Includes examples of the scene lists from famous authors.
But I have always—ALWAYS—wanted to host a writing workshop. In fact, I was making plans for one during late 2019, and thinking about holding the inaugural event in 2020. The world had other plans! I realized that I could do more good, dig in more deeply, and truly offer a unique...
Use aThesauruswhile writing your novel, but not to find the most exotic word. I most often a thesaurus to find that normal word that’s on the tip of my tongue. There’s no substitute for in-person interviews with experts. People love to talk about their work, and often such conversati...
In 'David vs Goliath' stories, the character who appears smaller/weaker often has a hidden strength. For example, students are able to mobilize fellow students and could create a wave of unstoppable change more powerful than the head's money. Let's look at a concrete example of a novel id...
Do you have any tips to add? Have you ever struggled with providing critiques to other writers? Has the critique process helped you improve your own writing? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment, and keep writing. POV preferences seem to fall in the subjective area more than in the obj...
Using the tools from our last tip, you could try writing the outline for a plot completely different from your main project, or fleshing out the backstory of a random character from the generator (use the questions from #5 to help you out!). If none of these take your fancy,check out...
A novel told in first person POV might make the reader feel like they’re very close to the main character, while a novel told in third person POV might give you more distance and scope. If you’re not sure which POV would suit your story best, you can try writing a passage of your...