Writing a story! Tips by: ME! There may be a few more but for now just these 7 :)

Writing tips

 

 

 

1.) Imagination is key

 

 

 

When you read a book like "The Lord of the Rings", "The Lost Books", "Dragons at Crumbling Castle", and all other good writers who make vividly fun, imaginative, and witty books that are fun for most ages. Using your imagination can be a good thing if used properly. In lots of books the author just doesn't use his or her imagination at all and makes a dull, boring, gross, pointless book that's just not worth reading or enjoyable.

 

I carry a notebook and pens everywhere around town, the house, road trips, family gatherings, and anything else. I love my books that I read. I respect people with different tastes in literature, even if they don't like or have never read Shakespeare. Books that I would recommend for anyone who is writing their own fantasy world would be J. R. R. Tolkien's books. If you want more down to earth books, Shakespeare, Historical-Fiction, Sci-Fi stuff like Star Wars and Star Trek books (the Star Wars ones are better to me). But if a story plot, character idea, or new setting ideas come into my head it's always handy to have a notebook and pens ready.

 

 

 

2.) What Makes A Good Character?

 

 

 

Well, I base lots of my characters on people I've met, characters in movies and books, and what mood I'm in. If I finish watching a really good movie like the first Star Wars movies I'll probably make a hero or a villain turned hero. But if I finish watching Tim Burton's version of "Alice In Wonderland" or "Coraline" I have a better chance of making a monster, villain, or a slightly deranged, drunk, or disturbed/disturbing person like Mad Hatter. If you want to make a perfect character that millions of fans will adore, don't go for looks, don't think about what others want. Just focus on the story YOU want to write. Published a book and it's a bestseller? Congrats! But, don’t make couples in your story just because people think this dude and this girl will look cute together. Before matching up the perfect couple, see if they can get along as friends, just friends. If that works the rest is up to you.

 

I have quite a few characters that are in my current novel I'm writing (I plan on finishing this one), most are guys because if you're going to have girl's fight only, it might as well be Wonder Woman leading them, right? I find it easy to just kill off the characters I don’t like, (Chapter 1 in my story: I destroyed a whole village just because some of the characters were annoying me) but that might not always be the right way. Later on you might forget you killed those characters/character and you have an amazing idea for it… But you can't do it properly without resurrecting them and that's only acceptable up to a point.

 

For any character you want to create, make him/her however you want. It's YOUR story, YOUR world, YOUR characters.

 

 

 

3.) Making Monsters Really "Scary" Without Grossing People Out

 

 

 

We all know the Slender Man, the Rake, Zombies, Vampires (no thanks to Meyers, Stoker's where it's at for that), Werewolves, and all those lovely things, right? So when you go to write a thriller/mystery and it has monsters my main rule is: DO NOT DESCRIBE EACH AND EVERY SINGLE DETAIL OF IT. Believe me, the Rake is scary enough as it is. You want your description to be enough to scare someone a little, and give good info about that monster so if/when it gets made into a movie the director can accurately get the monster to look right. I write quite a few of those types of stories, short stories are ideal for that to me. I have so far six short stories and only my last four have been good enough to stay out of the trash. My first one I made was "The Man In The Tree"… I kept that one. I like it a lot but didn't go to sleep for the rest of the night because I was editing it. I made that one near the beginning of this year, 2018. And I was quite (and still am) pretty proud of how it turned out. I described my monsters enough so that my siblings shouldn't read it due to maybe a little too much creepy lines and stuff like that.

 

You can start by sketching what you think your monster would look like: is it small, tall, or in between? Does it have eyes? Does it have only one form? Does it have claws, teeth, or fangs? Is it humanlike in nature or appearance? Hair? Skin, scales, fur, etc.? These are some main questions that you need to ask yourself about your monster.

 

Here is how I described my monsters in my first short story:

 

 

 

" A crash from the hallway, her father took her to the other side of the room. A manlike figure, blood red eyes, rotting face, sharp teeth and claw-like nails covered in blood looked at Sarah. A cold, yet strangely inviting voice called her. "Sarah, we miss you. Come back and play." "

 

 

 

Yeah… That was a little too dark and I didn’t go back to sleep for about a day. My Man In The Window was just the former owner who had strung himself up back near the first World War's end. He did this be tying it around a tree branch outside a window, and just jumped after placing the noose around his neck. So his ghost haunted the family and Sarah, their 13-15 year old kid, sees it with her overactive imagination. In a nutshell: They had lived there for a while, Sarah is captivated with the Man, her dad tries to bring her back to their reality, makes the Man mad, the Man sends my monster after Sarah to get her back, her dad calls for help, they get out of the house with her mom, they burn the house down.

 

 

 

4.) Get Your Stuff Together

 

 

 

Every writer comes to a road-block. Mine are: names, places, maps, languages, and not killing someone. You can easily pinpoint the things that could hinder a flowing chapter, like: oops… Forgot about him… or: um he's going to die, but what about his friend? It's always handy to know the characters before you introduce them, make fake scenarios and use them and maybe some others with him and see how well they work together. I forgot to do that so after I introduced some of them… I realized I made a HUGE mistake with my Ice Elf. I forgot a lot of his backstory, his personality, and his attitude… He is going to die later unless I mess his mind up with a mind controller or something. You can make things happen just right so that everything falls into place, or you can be completely original and do things your way!

 

If you're going to be making a book or story like Tolkien's, Stoker's, or Shakespeare you need to practice. I can't write good plays, but that doesn't stop me from writing a few every now and then. I have ONE that I've kept because I liked it. It was just a small screen-play for my story I mentioned in the last section. I got it pretty good, didn't edit it at all, but I had a super hard time trying to act it out without anyone else to help by playing the other characters. Even though I'm not good at that type of writing and I've tried over and over and over I've still not gotten the hang of it.

 

 

 

5.) Make Your Hero A Hero

 

Each hero needs something that drives him on in a fight, or makes him strong. In my current story, my men fight to protect their world because either they have family, close friend, or a wife (or a girl friend). This normally is how they protect, or depending on whether their personality is hero-like (sacrificing, kind, compassionate) then they are a hero. Remember that each hero needs a weakness, all mine have different ones. I have Berserker characters who fight until they die, but my others think before heading into battle. It's always nice to have a hero who thinks things through.

 

 

 

6.) A Villain Needs To Act Like A Villain

 

 

 

We all know Joker, Two-Face, Dr. Doom, Red Skull, Thanos, Hella, Scar, Ursula, Suron, Darth Vader & Kilo Ren, Shadow Man, Hades… See where I'm going with this list? Yes, most of them are Disney. They all have one big thing in common: Power Crave. Power Crave is when a character like say Scar want's to rule the whole world. Joker is a little lax about that and so is Two-Face, but they still want power even if it's not as much as the others. The character feels driven to want to rule the world or most of it. If you're making a Villain, he doesn't need to be hot, or even look good. He just needs these 10 essential facts of being what he's meant to be:

 

#1: A sad or dark backstory to create his always mood of evil.

 

#2: A hero to fight

 

#3: A reason to be how he is

 

#4: A struggle inside

 

#5: A weakness

 

#6: A person they care about (you don't really need this)

 

#7: A small hint of kindness and compassion (but rarely bring it up)

 

#8: A hard heart

 

#9: A strong will

 

#10: A good planner and adapts to each situation given

 

A hero needs to have the opposite list, or you're hero may be a little bit like a villain.

 

 

 

7.) A Grey Area Is Okay To Have

 

 

 

Batman, Loki, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Han Solo, and people like that are good examples. I'll use Loki first because he's easier to explain (sorta). Well, we know Loki has a lot of reason to be a Villain, he has all the traits and even looks good in his outfit. He hate's Thor, but at the same time he had lived and known him for both their lives so plain emotions are at work when he doesn't kill him. In "Thor: the Dark World" he saves Thor and Jane by "sacrificing himself". But he did go back to Asgard and claim the throne for himself, sending Odin into exile on Earth. A grey area is between hero and villain. So if you can't make up your mind if your character is a villain or hero, he or she can be a grey area until you figure it out. Each person has their own idea of what one is, and that was mine.

Done