Category: writing tips

How to Make a Good New Year Resolution

Andrew Michael Miller2 Comments

Here we are again, at the end of one year, hopeful and ready to greet a new one. It is no secret that this year was a hard one for a lot of people. More than three times as many people reported feeling depressed during the pandemic, when compared to prior to the start of it. Along with that, we saw an increase in the amount of binge drinking and other substance abuse during the year. Unsurprisingly, the obesity rate has also risen significantly during this very tough year. It was a very tough year for mental and physical and even spiritual health, and even though the new year is about to start, we're not out of the woods yet. Now that the new year is about to begin, have you already set a resolution for yourself? How can you ensure that this new year resolution will work? Are you ready to make the commitment to yourself? Here are some ideas on how to establish good habits and get the most out of the new you that you will make, one day at a time this new year.

In Honor of Christmas – Borrowing from Stories You Know and Love

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Christmas time has come again. As you wrap your gifts and prepare for a little Christmas of your own, you sip on some delicious egg nog and realize you want to commit to writing a book, script or short story. But where to begin? What story can you possibly write that hasn't been told before? How do you know if your story will be truly original, or if people will accuse you of stealing your idea from something else? The solution is simple. Don't stress about it. Go ahead and write your story and embrace the similarities with another story. Every story ever told is both a unique creation personal to the writer and a blend of elements found in other stories that the writer has consumed at some point in his or her life. You probably will not write a truly original story in your lifetime, but that doesn't mean you can't write many truly great stories.

The Dangers of Subverting Expectations

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Think about a book, movie or television show that has stuck with you over the years, but not for good reasons. What story left you speechless in a bad way when it was all told? Did the lighthearted book you picked up have a sudden graphic sex scene in it that made you uncomfortable? Did you go into the movie theater expecting Luke Skywalker to solve all of the main character's problems? Did your heroic dragon queen go insane and burn everyone alive at the end of the final season of your show? Let's talk about the modern trend of subverting expectations in storytelling, and why you, as a writer, should really consider the dangers of it before attempting to do so in your work.

What is an Antihero?

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The term antihero (or anti-hero) gets thrown around fairly often nowadays, sometimes incorrectly. The concept of an anti-hero is not technically new, but it certainly is prevalent in modern story-telling. The term itself was coined in the 18th Century, but examples of such a type of character are there in Greek drama, Roman satire and Renaissance literature. So what is an anti-hero, exactly? Simply put, an anti-hero is a main character of a story that does not have the typical qualities that are expected of a hero. This does not mean all antiheroes are bad people, just that they do not fit the traditional description of a hero.

Be Consistent With Your Writing Schedule

Andrew Michael MillerLeave a comment

Are you in a committed relationship with your writing, or are you in more of a "when I have time" kind of schedule with it? I'm willing to bet that if you are in the latter, you probably are not happy with how much you write, and it probably even causes you some amount of stress to think about how much you are not writing. You have to ask yourself: do I really want to write, or is it just something I'd like to do sometime, when I can get around to it? Once you decide what you want from your relationship with writing, then you should know how to proceed from there.