Easier Read Than Done

Wow, it's harder to write a blog post than I thought it would be. I have grown accustomed to writing in many formats like stories for my school’s newspaper, essays, short stories, plays, and most recently my own novel; however, somehow starting this blog post is kind of hard so please cut me some slack. I’m certainly new to the writing world in general, being 16 and all, but in my short experi...

As we covered in my first blog post, getting started is one of the hardest parts of writing a novel as a beginner, but the rest of it isn’t exactly a breeze either. I have realized that one thing that makes it feel difficult is when you get ahead of yourself and think about how far you have to go and how little you have actually accomplished when in the early stages of the process. So, I’m here ...

Throughout my writing journey, I have received incredible advice, tips, and guidance that has completely changed my work and I will be forever grateful for. Here are a few that I frequently come back to as well as a few that I learned through trial and error. 1.) Reader first. This was one of the first pieces of advice that I heard, and it teaches that you are writing for your reader first and f...

In my last post I gave you some tips and advice that I have either received from others or found out through trial and error, and I have plenty more for you.          1. Make time to write and make it a priority   True or false: you will get what you want done if you never spend time on it. Obviously false, you say (I can feel your eye roll through the screen), but even th...

Days get stressful. There is nobody on this planet that never feels any kind of stress or negative feelings. Everyone needs some healthy way to cope with stress and even use it to their advantage through productivity, and that’s exactly what I do with writing. Due to the fact that you are even reading this blog, I assume you have some interest in writing or english as well, which is great! Writin...

When writing a book, you can approach it one of two ways: plan out a detailed plot and create interesting characters to fit that plot or create the characters and throw them in a setting. Personally, I do the latter. I had a very general idea for what the plot would be and a vivid picture of what the world would look like in my mind. So, the last and most important part of my brainstorming was creatin...

When you read a good book, are told a compelling story, or watch an incredible movie, you know it. But what constitutes a great story? What makes you keep flipping the pages? I would say that there are five main attributes to a good story. The first of the important attributes is characters that the reader cares about. Characters are the driving force of a story, and the reader has to care enough ab...

There are a lot of things that detract from your story and kill your novel. Many of them are just failing to do what I detailed in my last post about elements to a good story, but there are a few specific things that jump out to me that you should avoid, specifically when writing your first draft. These things kill your draft before it's finished. First, inconsistency. Everything needs to be consistent, from yo...

Many times throughout my time writing my manuscript, I have actively thought about how I don’t want to copy anyone else’s work and keep mine entirely unique. This becomes difficult when you are reading really good books while you’re writing or are teaching a theme that is similar to ones from your favorite novels, and you might begin to stress over the originality of your work if it is not 100% ...