In unabashed, media-pimping, YouTube style, I bring you ten ways to improve your writing. Ta-da!
Inspired by a similar non-fiction list from Carl Natale over on workawesome, I’ve taken on a lot of writing craft over the last couple of years, and here’s the cream of it.
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Attention spans are getting shorter, reading choice is getting bigger; which is why writers have to include five items on page one
After the book’s cover, page one is where most readers start. Anyone who says you have the first chapter to set out your stall is peddling old advice. Page one has a lot to do if you’re to get the reader to turn over to page two and keep going.
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There are plenty of beneficial writers’ tools, but a weekend of editing has taught me something: Grammarly’s good but not for fiction.
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Another gem from the BYU online writers’ course features author and lecturer Brandon Sanderson on character. In this lecture, Sanderson outlines his theory of character in fiction. It’s a remarkably simple and effective formula, from a best-selling genre writer.
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Think of this as a writer’s cheat sheet: the six essential elements of story.
There are so many ways to define, deconstruct, breakdown and pick apart ‘story‘, but I’ve found Anne Hawley’s six word prompts the most useful.
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If you’re stifled at the keyboard unable to find your free flow: get up and create.
It’s a common thing with authors and other creative types. You want to create but the creativity won’t flow.
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From his Free Writing Course online, we bring you Brandon Sanderson’s Three P’s of Plot. Fine advice for the budding author…
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How many times do you edit and revise, and still wonder how to fix a bad scene in your manuscript. Been there, struggled with that. You don’t always know why it doesn’t work, but that feeling won’t go away. …
I’ve been challenged to write an epic fantasy genre story, so I’m reading a lot of current fantasy fiction. It varies from ‘meh’ to ‘aarrrgghh!’ not only for the quality of the writing, but the vast number of fantasy genre tropes we love and hate.
A trope is any type of figure of speech, theme, image, character, or plot element that is used many times. All genres have them, but the fantasy genre is piled higher than Khazad Dum (too geeky already?).
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Following up a Writer’s Summit, a few days on from Escape the Plot Forest , I’m still digesting all that material and need to go over some of it again!
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