The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do. Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was from, and to arrange sticky notes on your dog in the shape of hilarious dog shorts. The blank white page. Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” Finding a really good muse these days isn’t easy, so plan on going through quite a few before landing on a winner. There are two things more difficult than writing. It’s so easy to hide in your little bubble, typing your little words with your little fingers on your little laptop from the comfort of your tiny chair in your miniature little house. It’s no secret that great writers are great readers, and that if you can’t read, your writing will often suffer. Available in print withThe Best of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
How to Recover Your Writing Confidence (Even if You Think You Never Had Any) (Image from Flickr by hans s) No writer I know ever feels totally confident about their writing. A lack of confidence is absolutely normal (or at least, as normal as writers get…) In fact, a little bit of self-doubt can be a very positive thing. Revise and edit your work thoroughlySeek a second option before publishing your writingContinue learning and practicing as you develop your craft However … a real lack of confidence can be a huge stumbling-block for would-be writers. If you find yourself constantly revising and tweaking, or if you cringe every time you show a piece of writing to a friend or publish a blog post, or if you work always sounds stilted and guarded … then this post is for you. When You Were Young… I titled this post how to recover your writing confidence. You might have felt pretty unconvinced by that – perhaps you’re sure that you never had any confidence at all. Perhaps it was when you were very small. Perhaps you were in primary school. Perhaps you were a teenager.
Rant on putting your characters through absolute hell Well, this one was the winner by the most votes I’ve ever seen in a poll, so up it goes. You’ll probably note pretty quickly that all the items on this list are psychological/emotional. Well, yes. I think scenes of physical pain, especially torture, are overused in fantasy, especially because authors have a tendency to forget about wounds whenever they would get in the way and just send their characters pelting off as if they’d never suffered. Also, psychological/emotional methods of putting people through hell mean that you get to use characters’ faults against them, and readers’ expectations for fantasy heroes against them. (And if I sound like a sadist, I swear I’m not. 1) Create a situation that punishes the character for using his best qualities. The trick here is not to make the situation seem contrived. Fantasy authors create the most extraordinary people all the time. 2) Have him mistake a present threat or enemy for one from the past. Now seize that and turn it on its head.
Writing Tips - General On other pages of this site, you can read many of my best writing tips. But this page is for you! Your tip can be about a grammar or spelling rule, the writing process, or how to get published. Anything you think another writer will appreciate belongs here. Click below to see writing tips from other visitors to this page... Spelling, Spelling, Spelling!!!!!! What to do for Writers' Block. Agony first, ecstasy second As you and your contributors have noted, reading is essential; lots of reading and extra reading in fact cannot be emphasized enough. Avoid time warp Keep notes of details and timeline separate from what you will write or need to write in your novel. Google Images for the win! Your writing - your interests One problem I often face is that I get bored half - way through. Cliches and Sterotypes We always roll our eyes at these. interesting characters Think of how you would you be if you were the character you describe. Backwards! Dream When writing you must think! enjoy it! 1.
10 More Websites That Help Cure Writer’s Block With Writing Prompts From jumping into the shower to using voice recognition software, these famous authors (some Booker Prize awardees) have their own idiosyncrasies. But all of them seem to agree on one hurdle: the dread of writer’s block. Most of us are nowhere near those heights, but we do our own form of writing, like blog posts or simple journaling. Even then, sometimes the words just refuse to come. That’s when writing prompts can help. Creative Writing Prompts We start off with a popular site for writing prompts. Writing Fix WritingFix.com is an educator’s resource for writing lessons and language skills. Plinky A prompt each day should help you light the spark of creativity. Fifteen Minutes of Fiction The writer’s site allows you to break the stranglehold of dullness with aids like Grab Brag ““ the randomly generated writing prompt that authors can use to get started on writing an essay, story or poem. The Story Starter How about 1,108,918,470 creative prompts to make you perk up and start to write?
Writing process Since a few of you expressed mild interest in the speech I gave at Sirens in October last year I thought I would share it with you. The theme was monsters and my speech involved me showing many monstrous images. Yes, that’s my disclaimer, I wrote this to be spoken to a real life audience with funny pictures and the funny may not work so well without the kind and appreciative live audience. Here it is: Monsters I Have Loved Ideas = Brain Monkeys According to Maureen Johnson Like every other writer ever I get asked “where do you get your ideas” a lot. Here’s how I got the idea for the speech I’m about to give, which is very similar to how I get ideas for the novels I write. Excellently recursive, yes? I knew I had to write a speech for Sirens more than a year ago. Then one day in July, or possibly August, I was walking around New York City with my headphones on listening to music. Nah, not really. Feminism + Young Adult Literature + Monsters = Elvis Am I right? No? Me and Elvis Appropriation No!
How to Plot a Character Driven Book in 3 Easy Steps | Historical Romance Author Robyn DeHart, Legend Hunters , Ladies Amateur Sleuth Society Theme & Premise: Or How to Plot a Character Driven Book in 3 Easy Steps It is said that there are two types of writers: plotters and seat of the pants writers (or fly into the mist writers). Obviously the majority of us fall somewhere in between. Step 1 – THEME. To define your theme, you need to know what theme is, so what is theme? But how do you come up with a theme out of thin air, especially if you’re doing this with a book you haven’t even written yet? So now you have your theme, let’s move on to Step 2 – PREMISE/CHARACTER LESSON. This is the biggie for me when I’m doing my prewriting. Character lesson or premise is just what it sounds like: what does your character need to learn? Which brings me right into Step 3 – CHARACTER ARC. Now comes the plotting. So you have a character who is at Point A (believing her past dictates her future) and needs to get to Point B (accepting her past and allowing herself a future). That’s it. Let’s face it, writing will never be easy. Share this page
Story And Plot Michael Arndt on setting a story in motion Michael Arndt explains some of the things he learned while working on the screenplay for Toy Story 3. Groundhog Day John and Craig pay their respects to Harold Ramis with an episode devoted entirely to Groundhog Day. When you think someone stole your idea A screenwriter sees a trailer that matches the premise of something he wrote ten years earlier. Frozen with Jennifer Lee In the tradition of the Raiders and Little Mermaid episodes, John and guest host Aline Brosh McKenna discuss and dissect the award-winning, record-setting, paradigm-shifting Frozen. Scriptnotes Holiday Spectacular ‘Twas the Holiday Scriptnotes and at our behest, Craig and John were joined by our six favorite guests. Let’s talk about coverage Craig and John talk readers and coverage, centering their discussion on profound_whatever’s infographic charting 300 submissions and the lessons screenwriters can take from it. Positive Moviegoing Damsels in distress Let me give you some advice