1. Read, read, and read. Decide what kind of story you want to write and then read similar stories. Don't read them once, but five, six, seven times.
2. Take a story apart. Find out what made them tick. How did the writer build suspense? Write the plot in 1,000 words. Outline each chapter. Study emotional scenes. What made them that way? How did the writer feed in background information and character description?
3. Plan your story, then decide your theme (what you're trying to prove in your story). This should be two sentences, or a paragraph at most.
4. Decide your point-of-view. Who is telling the story?
5. Plot or cast your story. You can begin with either a main character, or a situation. Either way is fine, the important thing is having someone facing a problem they can't handle.
6. Get your main character (hero or heroine) into trouble right off the bat and keep him/her there until the end. The reader wants things to happen immediately. Try to have something happen each page.
7. Plot must be tightly structured to maintain a fast pace in some of the category books. You can't expand as in longer novels.
8. Join a local writer’s group that provides lectures and critiques.
9. Use critiques to improve your writing.
10.Join a national writers organization-i.e. Romance Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, American Christian Fiction Writers, Science Fiction Writers or other writers’ organizations that can put you in touch with authors and agents in the field you want to write.
What tips do you have that might help a beginning writer?
1 comment:
A good comprehensive list. Thank you. If I had to add anything, it would be something that applies to all writers. New and seasoned -- Don't worry about what you're writing. Just write. Save everything, but don't be frustrated if only 1-out-of-ten ideas end up being good enough to keep working on.
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