Tag: writing tips

Be Consistent With Your Writing Schedule

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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.

Be Thankful for Every Step You’ve Taken!

Andrew Michael Miller1 Comment

Sometimes it hurts to look back and see things of which you are not particularly proud. As a creative person, it can be so hard to appreciate the work done in an earlier stage in your development. You look upon that work with veteran eyes, nitpicking any elements you made that you would do differently now in retrospect. Sometimes you become ashamed of it and want to hide it. After all, it doesn't represent who you are now, right?

The Three Sentence Writing Challenge

Andrew Michael Miller1 Comment

Here's a challenge for you to try to test out your writing chops! Taken from a short story-writing guest lecture on Brandon Sanderson's master class on writing science fiction and fantasy, from Hugo award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal, this will not only challenge you to understand how to engage audiences quickly, it will help you say more with less words. In the lesson, Mary challenges aspiring authors to write three sentences that tell readers exactly what kind of experience they're in for by picking up your book. Can you rise to the challenge?

How to Write the Four Types of Stories

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As a writer, you have stories to tell, but maybe you're not quite sure how to begin to get all that information in your head onto the page. This is where structure is important, and the best way to determine what your story structure should look like is by understanding the four different types of stories: milieu, idea, character and event. By deciding what kind of story you're telling, you should have a much clearer idea of how to tell it.

Character Writing: Redemption Arcs

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One of the most effective and beloved ways to develop characters in storytelling comes in the form of the redemption arc. Suddenly, a switch gets flipped in an antagonist's mind, bringing them over to the side of the good guys just in the nick of time. Audiences eat it up every time, so much so that many people claim the redeemed character as their favorite. But why does the redemption arc resonate so well with people, and what are the best ways to include it in your work of fiction?