Creative Writing: Become a Better Writer With a Minimalistic Approach

1. Introduction: Hi, my name is Jesse and witness a part course. I will be teaching you some tools you can use to become a better writer. The advices from these lectures mostly help you tighten your pros with more lean type of riding or approach. Some might even call minimalistic. And these can be applied to any type of creative writing, fiction or nonfiction, whatever genre you right, and whether you right now most or short stories or even poems and songs, you can have the greatest characters to cool as we're building the most amazing bloods. But in our modern world filled with movies and video games and TV sows, that might not be enough because people have much more easier and efficient ways of consuming stories rather than reading. And that is why it's really important to focus on how you are telling your story so that the person who doesn't have to read your book wants to read it. But why don't you stick around for a while and hear me say the best tips and tricks which have evolved my writing the most over the years. 2. Become a Better Writer by Using Active Verbs: I will begin this course with an advice that has improved my writer the most. And if I could teach you only one thing, it would be this never used the words is or have in your writing ever again. And the difference here lies between active verbs and abstract works. Abstract work, by definition, means a verb of motion whose motion is multi-directional or even direct, Instead of being single, completed acts. And the word is a present tense third person singular of B, whereas the world has a third person singular present, indicative of hat. Two words as abstract, as can be. Example, sack is happening, remember, multi-directional or indirect. And that is what that statement is. When a word is not single completed acts and the meaning of the work can vary. Being happy can mean different things to different people depending on different factors. Our sender, our class, our culture, all these things. Pause the multi-directional or the indirect verb in different directions. What being happy means to you might be a nightmare to someone else, but running is still running no matter who you are, no matter where you come from. Balancing is always pulsing and swimming is always women. According to multiple studies, our brain is immediately stimulated when we read active words. But this doesn't happen with their abstract counterparts, which include birdlike, alarm or hate, or remember, or may leave as a verb, alarm is on very multi-directional. It can mean so many different things to so many different people and that is not good. See, your job as a writer is to make the reader feel different things, not sell them, to feel them, and to do so, you need active direct words that mean the same thing to every single person. The sentence, sack is happy, is lazy writing. Zack believed sila hated him. These relays, writing, sack, love it. Cl is lazy writing what is hate and what is wrong. So instead of saying sack believed seal no longer loved team, you could say something like for the first time during their 4-year relationship, still only made herself coffee that morning. Maybe instead of saying sack, hated Christmas, you could try something like every Christmas Eve sacks that would get Frank. And in his frenzied state, he'd beat his wife while all the children heat under the Christmas tree. So even now, 20 years later as an adult, when the first normal force. Zack, here's that single bells. Sievers travel along his buying and make his heart race. We have all been taught the same thing in the beginning. Show, don't tell. And this is that at its most fundamental level, though, I would rephrase that. Make me feel. Don't tell me how to feel. Tack had bright blue eyes, saccade hat on his head, cicada hammer in his hand is, are all dead sentences. This is fat riding. And you want to cut out as much fat as you can because good writing is the writing every description you would normally tell by using the abstract verb has, you can show it by blending the description with the active verb. And by doing so, you're not only stimulating their readers pray, but you are also cutting fat. Sack, swung the hammer, bribe blue eyes glowing under the theme of the hat. The information here remains the same. Sag, his bright blue eyes, the hat, and the hammer. But this time, three dead sentences are combined into one, even changing, Zach had a hammer in his hand to check held. A hammer in his hand is much better. And by playing with the work, you are able to paints completely different mental image. Zach rotated the hammer in his hand. Check dropped the hammer from his hand. The steel of the hammock listened, insects hand, the hammer weights like shame. Insects hand check, tightened the grip around the hammer. Psych relaxed the gripper on the Hammer versus sack hat a hammer in his hand. Again, you can have the greatest characters and the coolest plot. But if you are writing is lazy, your whole story becomes dung. Using abstract verbs equals lazy writing and lazy writing equals bad, right? Active verbs versus abstract words, multi-directional or indirect versus direct. He was tired versus he yawned. He was happy to see her vs. he smiled when he saw her. She thought sack was hot. Vs. When Zach took off his hoodie, his t-shirt lifted up to solving bare skin was pants Hangzhou low and silk God herself biting her lip. Again. From this point on you, you'll start to see lazy arriving everywhere. And you will hate it. And you will hate me for spoiling it. And you will also hate me for making writing difficult for you, but that is only for a little one. Note, using abstract verbs can be really hard and intimidating in the beginning, but when you make a habit out of it, your writing becomes so much better. Good bros flows seamlessly, and I'd see that you have to use direct active verbs, abstract words, bring the pros into a halt and motionless. Riding is boring. I also want to make it very clear that sometimes breaking this rule is not only acceptable but also necessary, but like with every piece of writing advice, master the rule first and then you can break. Then instead of saying he told the lightening storm was scary, you can write like Mr. Cormac McCarthy and say something like all night, seed lightning, Kuwait sources to the west beyond the meantime, tundra heads, making a bluest Day of the distant desert. The mountains on the southern skyline, Stark and black and live it like a land of some other order out The whose true geology was not stone, but fear. 3. Make Every Chapter an Adventure: Have you ever wondered why sometimes you'll have trouble concentrating during a two hour movie, but you have no problem at all binge-watching, have a season of friends. This is why every story can be divided into sections. The simplest one being the Three Act, story structure. Act One, the setup act to confrontation at three, resolution and every single act divided by important plot points. In Act One, we learn about Luke Skywalker and then empire TLS, his family, enact to Luke, gets captured by the Death Star and he rescues layer. But then OP one dies, enact three, they destroy the Death Star. Something is, something happens and something is different now. And most of the stories also follow up. 8 heroes churn. You are, but you need or one something. So you go after it. And ten, you adapt during your search through hardship until you find the thing, but you pay a price to take it, the new return, but you have changed. Luke Skywalker is a farmer in middle of nowhere, but he yearns for an adventure. So he leaves to become a Jedi after Empire killed his family. And then Millennium Falcon is captured by Empire, dead star, look risk groups layer, but OB1 dies. Then they return to the rebellion camp. But with help of these new friends, Luke uses the force to destroy that. It's really much without acceptance. Every story can be fit into the same mold. And this is why our brains recognizes the pattern. Not only is it used in films, but in television as well, but movie can be over two hours long. Television, so 22 minutes. But the pattern is the same. Every episode of your favorite sitcom follows the same structure, the setup, the confrontation, the residues. You are given a completely new story within the recognizable pattern with every single episode. And not only do the episodes follow the same structure, but also the season has whole, with every single small story creating a one biggest story when you're writing a book, 3D is more like TV. So rather than a film, not only sue deal book follow the same structure, but every saboteur should as well. And quite often, this occurs naturally. But from this point on, I want you to really concentrate on what is your setup, holistic confrontation, and what is your residues and what are deployed points dividing the acts. In my opinion, every single chapter should be treated almost like a source story. They should maintain their own weight and their power and their own authority. Not only should the chapter contribute to some larger story, but also work individually. If I Paul, say, only it's up to seven out of your book and I read it as is. Can I enjoy IT? What about chapter three? Chapter 23? And a lot of people will disagree because lot of people say that is the overall story that matters. And the chapters are only building blocks. And I understand where they're coming from because to a certain degree, I even agree. But again, let's look at back to the film and television comparison. You can treat your book like a film or like a TV. So, but I guarantee you, if you treat every single one of your chapters like an adventure of their own, your readers won't be able to put your book down. By doing this, not only will your chapters be much stronger, but they are also a lot more fun to write. These will also give you a lot of freedom and save you some headache when you're editing. Because now you can even sayings the order of some of the chapters, because they are not so dependable on its other. Of course they will be because, you know, that's the difference between novel and a solid-solid collection, but not as much. Think of it like the diverse stator from transformers where individual messiness comes together and form a one, Superman seeing. Another really important thing regarding chapters, I learn from screenwriting. They have a saying, arrive late and leave early. And I tried to implement that in everything of mites, actors, let's say you want to write a fighting scene, became a chapter from a moment. The fighting has already begun and enter chapter before the finding Does. This way, you will keep the reader hooked through action throughout the whole chapter. Let's take an example you've seen is this sacked leaves his home or work halfway through the car ride, he realizes he has led some important papers at home, and he needs those papers today at work. So he drives back home really fast through the traffic. And when he gets home, he finds his girlfriend kissing with Academy and tack being already angry, he threatens the cardinal. The cardinal gets mad and then a fight breaks out. The key elements of the scene basically is the fight scene. Every single thing before that is only on chain of events leading to death. And to be honest, if you are not really good for either, it can be really difficult to make every single thing in the scene interesting or funny, or engaging. Sacked leaving psych driving cycle returning. Things can get. Boring pretty quickly. So sometimes when there were a lot of uninteresting events leading up to some great event. Maybe consider not making your story linear. In example a, the basic structure is this. A sack leaves for work, be sacked, drives his car and realizes he forgot the papers. C, sac returning home, de sac finds out about his girlfriend and gardener. And E, the fight. And like I said, most of this stuff can get really boring really quickly if you are not excellent. Writer and fight scene here is the key element. So begin the scene when the fighting has already started, maybe tag and the gardener are already on the floor wrestling and a girlfriend is next to them crying, and the front door is open and the car is running, and it's already chaos and mayhem. The reader is hooked immediately, true axiom. Now, the reader is left with a lot of questions. What is going on? Why is this happening? And now the tables might be turned. And whereas all the information in the previous example might've been boring. Now, it might be interesting so the reader can learn what is going on. So in example B, it could go something like this. We started with E, the fight. Then we can go back to maybe a and only collect some of the important and engage in bullet points we need. Then we go back to E, the fight. This is the key element and the driving action. And we might go back to b to the moment Zachary realizes he needs to call back to get the papers, maybe or you can even skip it entirely and then maybe go back to the fight. Then see as he speeds through the highway. And then maybe even go back to E before taking it to D, the moment psych sees the corner and his girlfriend kissing. All this might seem really complicated at first, but this will help you tremendously with saboteurs and seen that has a lot of important, but maybe pouring plot points. Because now the fight being the present moment, you can always go back in time and peak only the most entertaining and engaging plot points and build all the information around them. It's actually built all his coffee on his lap while driving and tag can be the first class back. Maybe the moment he realizes heaters on half the papers, he's in the middle of bad traffic and he can't get out of there immediately. And maybe the third flashback is the scene where he is speeding in the middle of the highway so he can get to home before heading back to work in time. And of course, this very zombie and nonlinear storytelling can be very exhausting to read if you keep repeating it over and over again. And I advise you not to do it, but keep this all in mind. Story doesn't have to be a linear. From point a to point E. You can toy around with it, experienced with it, and of course have fun with. So to recap, treat your novel like the TV. So rather than a film and make every single chapter and adventure of its own almost like a sort of story and experience with linear storytelling to create compelling probes. 4. First-Person Always Beats Third-Person: If both are done badly, I would choose third person over first-person any day. But if they're done well, third-person cannot even compete with first person. And this is one good story, will make the reader feel like seas there in it. Part with good story, grabs the reader and places her in the story. And of course, this can be at sieved through third-person narrative. But still, third-person narrative will always be this outside the voice narrating everything from somewhere above. It will always only be a voice narrating what is happening inside of being part of what's happened. And we turn person narrative. You can't really describe how people are feeling internally because thin you will be like this code like omnipotent Narrator. And that is not relatable. People relate to a MOS. This is why my advice is this bright in first-person, but as little as about yourself as you possibly can. First-person narrative is as personal as it can get. But every time you mention the word I, the reader is reminded that the things are happening to you instead of her. So this means you have to throw the word I in the same bin you through all the abstract works. And of course you will not be writing without any eyes. But still every IU take out is one step. Her Japan arriving. First-person story is personal by putting the reader in the boots of the narrator, instead of being like this third person floating, I was seeing the events unfold. But every time you write I, the reader is yanked out of it. So my advice is to do that as little as you possibly can. Number one thing is to start focusing on how you say things. Instead of riding. I saw check put on his shoes. You can suggest, right? Check put on his shoes. There is not a one reason you should be telling you solid, because again, this is first-person narrative, which means you have seen it because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell this whole submersed. The Ivan was made famous by the author sock Palenik who learned from alter Peter Christopher. And these are not the words, but basically every eye is speed bump on an open road. So rephrase things, say things differently. Pay attention to your sentences. Even every MY, mine or me is better than I. But if you can avoid them too, do it. I find Team vs he eight months I was hit by him versus heat binds to me. I tasted blood versus blood filled my mouth. I felt the cool wind on my skin versus the cool wind licked my skin. I walked into the kitchen and there I saw him vs. he waited MY indicates. I heard my father south, my father salad. It's these little things that will enhance your riding tremendously and this might sound below hearts. But at the end of the day, your story is not for you. It's for the reader. Also anode. With first-person narrative. The narrator should never be the hero. See if seizes wrote the Bible about himself. You wouldn't like to read that book. But because it's a book written about him in first Paris and narrative, it's a great read. So writing, first-person and deeds, the eye. 5. How to Write Good Dialogue: Good dialogue serves our purpose. So number one question we ought to ask is, what is the purpose of dialogue? Number one, dialogue should reveal something either about the character or the world, the flesh them out, so to speak. Or number two, dialogue should create tension. And if you're gonna do both at once, even better. Example, let's imagine a scene. Sack goes to visit his friend. Hey, Zack said, Hey, so nodded, what's up? I'm fine. How are you? I'm all right. Pretty rough day though. Too bad. Yeah. Sachs said that dialogue is completely empty. It serves no purpose at all. Or we learn is that sack has had a pretty rough day and even that could be sown rather TEN told. So all that dialogue is nothing but dead weight to your pros. Of course, all love might seem real. This is how we do real people talk. But this is where we, the riders face a huge misconception. Dialogue should not be realistic. Dialogue should be believable. If you concentrate on people and how they talk, you start to notice very interesting patterns. Half of the sentences are interrupted by other people. Half of the sentences are not given thinnest. The grammar might be terrible. There's a lot of likes. But an ohms. We rarely speak with periods. Every sentence begins with but or, and, or because, and the sentences are filled with, you knows, in real life, speeds has quite a different purpose. So if you try to seem realistic, your book is going to be filled with a lot of carpets. So how do you write a believable dialogue? We have all heard the same advice about writing dialogue. Listen how people talk in real life. No, don't listen. What we all come from different backgrounds. Some are poor, somewhat reads, somewhat struggling. Some are born with a golden spoon in their mouth. We have different interests, we have different educations, we have different circle of people around us. Everything and anything affect us as people, including the way we speak. Not only what you say, but also how you say it reflects you as a person. In 1971, Albert Mehrabian published a book, Silent Messages, where he says that only 7% of our communication is. Verbal. So observe. Maybe you had that one uncle who is always the center of attention during your Sunday barbecues and everyone seems to like him, even you and you don't even know why. How does he take the control of the rule? Does he keep touching people's hands, slapping their bags, and he keeps leaning closer and closer to you until you have to lay it back. Is he loved, good. He be talking about his cats and still has established his dominance. What about your site? Calcium may be C doesn't hold eye contact at all. And her solders Islam forward. There was that one guy who's overweight and he keeps pulling his search away from his body. And there is that one liar who keeps repeating that one phrase or sentence over and over again while they keep touching their mouth. Also notice how people had their own unique styles of speaking. One person might curse a lot. One might use some slang because he grew up in the streets. The third one might try to use big words to impress some peak people. Everyone has their own different accent. People pronounce words differently, or maybe even mispronounce them completely. They have different idioms and metaphors regarding the things they know about someone's starters. Every character is different and that is why it is important to understand where they have come from and what have they been. True. A character's shouldn't sound like the author except to narrator When writing in first person, in torts, RR Martin's a Song of Ice and Fire. You start to notice this really quickly. The royal high-born people talk very differently than the low-born people of the realm. Micah, to boot says, Boy, almost speaks completely different languages as surrogacy, the GUI, as he should. Every character has a voice that is based on who they are as a person, the boosters boy and the queen are very different people from very different places. And their unique voice makes them more a livable. And this brings us to dialogue tags. First, no icebergs ever. And I believe Stephen King has already told you this, adverbs are lazy, priding, never, right? Yes. He said happily. Be creative and don't be lazy. Yes. He said smiling. Yes. He said something around his apartment like Tinker battle with stupid long smiling space. No adverbs. Also tried to avoid sentence has like no, see disagreed. The meaning of the dialogue should be conveyed either through what is being said or how it is said. You don't need both. Mentioning of the disagreement is completely unnecessary. Although adverbs tell you how things are being said, they are still lazy writing and they should be avoided. Using adverbs is telling and use it always soul. Once again, being a happy is subjective. People react differently to being happy. One might cry, one might laugh, one might some ground. Your job is to take no shortcuts because people are complex beings. Your job is to show how they act under different circumstances. Happily doesn't cut it. And finally, no talking heads, meaning conversation, dialogue without dialogue tags. Let's take the example from the beginning. You don't want this. You can even forget what's being said. This is not realistic and this is not believable. No one talks like this. This type of dialogue paints an image of two people standing there without moving, without blinking and such talking. Because remember, only 7% of our communication is verbal. Use the other 93 as well. Now, let's compare that earlier talking heads conversation that this small piece that I wrote where the dialog stays the same. Hey, Sachs set a seed, offered a hand to his friend. This most of a man's dead him with his yellow lies deep in his head fighting the heavy leads as they pushed and pushed down wearing nothing but Paxos, the big man as Dean, hair all over the place. So looked at sack, the nice hand hanging in the air, then check again. A thick layer of something brown chocolate. Perhaps listened, and cover the lower half of their own face. Hopefully chocolate. Hey, that Goliath nod at them and turned around only to disappear into the dark apartment. He's tree trunk legs stomping the ground. Site followed. He took office saccade, and after finding his friend in front of the TV screens sitting between empty solar cans and pizza boxes that smelled sour. Key asked, What's up? See how all this brings life to the scene. Instead of these two talking heads, we are now seeing the story out, although the dialogue is still bad. Even if it might be realistic, even if it might be fun. Good dialogue forms from two different components and being believable is the first. Number two is what I already talked about in the beginning. Purpose of dialogue is it should have a purpose. Number one, dialogue should reveal something about the character or the world around her. Or number two, it should create tension. Now, let's take the same scene, but sayings, dialogue. I thought I'd never see you again. Exit as CIO for the hand to his friend. This moves of a man's, their psych with his yellow lies deep in his head firing the heavy leads as the boost and pushed down wearing nothing but boxers, his thin hair all over the place. So look at SAC, then his hand hanging in the air, then sec again, a thick layer of something Brown socket perhaps implicit, and cover the lower half of the round face, hopefully chocolate. I hope so. They collide not at ten and turned around to disappear into the dark apartment. His front legs stomping on the ground. Zach followed. He took off its socket, and after finding his friend in front of a TV screen sitting between empty soda cans and pizza boxes that smelled sour. He asked, still mad about the game. Ha, now this is completely different. It might be not as realistic per se, but it's still believable. This could happen. And now every piece of dialogue reveals something more. Whereas in the previous example, we only learn things through the axon and description sack coming to see his friend show in his underwear covered in chocolate pizza boxes, all that. But in the second example, we learn even more. We learned something about sex and relationship and that they haven't met for a while, tactile. So did you want to meet him? And so kind of whizzes. They didn't but still let him into his apartment. And then we learned it's all because of some game, all in three pieces of dialogue. Another point here is that this also creates tension. Not much, but it still does. If you'd like to continue this conversation, you truly think twice what sold, say next. Still mad about the game. Ha, yes. Now all the tension is gone and you have to build it again. Of course, yes, reveals something about the character saw, but all the tension is destroyed. And tension is one of the most important aspects of good story. So perhaps you could try maintaining the tension or even race it. Still mad about the game hub. Mention it one more time and you wish you did it. Or still mad about the game hub, know as madness you when you find out what I did with your mother last Saturday, number one reveals something about a character or the world. But to create tension, but do both if you can. According to my theory, every piece of dialogue should come with dialogue. Tag, some tester or something, but no talking heads, not even one pumpkin head. But all of this creates a problem because now if you have a lot of dialogue and it's filled with title tags, this prose can get really heavy to read. So the solution is to reduce the amount of dialogue. And this might be the most controversial thing, RB, THC, but bear with me. You don't have to follow everything I teach here. It's more like you can pick out wherever you like and leave all the rest and start implementing parts of this lecture into your own writing. But by reducing the amount of dialogue you have you to a couple of things both to it and with it. A, it's easier to maintain tension with words when there's less words being said. And be the last dialogue you have, the more weight, the Gary incur fewer dialogue like a lumbered scene is really cool to see one every now and then. But if every single person's row one would take kinda lose, take lowering. 6. Use All Five Senses & Three Dimensions: When you are writing a book, you have one huge advantage over films and TV and even video games with, in the modern day are stomping lethal to the crowned. With movies you only have what you see and what you hear. And that's that no matter what you saw on the silver screen, you won't be able to taste it or touch it or smell it. Films have to rely on to sensors, and that is very limited, but good flyer can make the reader smell and taste and feel beings that are not really there. There are a lot of limitations when it comes to television, but there is none when it comes to returns. Let's imagine a scene. Man arrives in Havana, Cuba in the 19 fifties by a boat and he wants to get a drink in a movie. All there is is what we hear and what we see. Maybe they saw was a fella who hopes of a skiff. And then he starts his journey towards the bar. We see beautiful blue. Also we see beautiful architecture. We hear people talk in Spanish and we might hear seagulls in the background. Maybe we hear the boards of the dock. Greek. Maybe we hear music at the bar when the guy finally gets the shore, it can be stunning. A good director knows how to use his medium and take full advantage of sound and image to create a beautiful piece of art. And no matter how vivid and lively the image is, that's still all. There is, the pixel and the sound. But as a writer, you have everything in a decent of the sound. And Big Sur, you also have the smell and the taste and the tutte's. So use them. What does china in the fifties smell like? Maybe it's the FIS At the doc. The C has a cool smell to it to see cars smoke in the streets, the exhaust of the cars driving on the road. What about the taste assault in your mouth after days of sailing? The same exhaust 15 Cindy air. And finally I could drink at the bar, could run that burst at Rose, dusty character feel the warm sun on his neck, maybe his Bailey Krauss, after not eating anything during his last day at C, Does he feel sea sick and nurses because of it? Does the wind blow and is it still wore? Every sense NO2 used is a missed opportunity to flesh out your story to make it more vivid in the imagination of your reader. And now that you're writing in first person, you also have the dimensions to play with. You are not limited to two dimensions of the TV screen. Insert the reader in the booth of the narrator and bring her up and down from side-to-side, back and forth. You can go fast and you can go slow, and you can even stop time, made it before arriving at the dogs, the waves of the sea or rocking the boat, maybe on the street that is packed with pedestrians, people are pushing him. Maybe he runs, maybe he falls, maybe he cannot run because of the masses. Maybe he dances in the DMM bar, swinging and swaying to demotion of coupon guitars, taking the reader with him, making her feel to motion. He feels five senses, 3D menses, only rider has them all sold, used them. 7. Beware the Pronouns: By now I have already told you to not use any abstract works and eliminate all your I's. And now I'm going to make you hate me even more. Don't use the pronouns he or C. Well, you're gonna use some but minimize them as well. When it comes to referring to a character, he is the most dull and boring world you're going to use. Descriptive if tells us nothing important about the current. Let's take another example from a song of ice and fire. Sun snow is referred to as capacitors. Tyrion is the IMP, robert is the king, CRC is the queen, generous is Danny or Kelly's. By doing this source R, R. Martin gives himself a lot of freedom over his own prose because now he doesn't have to rely on the character's name or the pronoun, because now he has 34 even five different ways referring to a one single character, two gets very repeated very quickly. But we three, there is a lot more room to play in. And again, he and c are known descriptive, but the pastor or the input tape tell us something about the character. Arabic does more lean type of writing. You want to eliminate as months of excess from your prose as you possibly can. So if by tensing, he said to Solomon, said, I can take out an entire separate sentence where I would describe the character as tall. I would do it in my newest book. I have a character called Adolph King. And he is this like very loud communist who is really open about his ideas. And he always wears the soldier's uniform no matter where he goes. So I might refer to him as the commonest or come rate king or the soldier. So now, instead of bombarding debates with his name and his pronoun, I can create more rhythm and variation by using these sort of titles. And in the book, I also have another character called Edward, who works as a clown in the city servers. And I might refer to him as eight or the clown or even the gorilla, because earlier in the book, this wrestlers physical appearance is described as very guerilla like using these sort of titles are good way to number one, use something else instead of heat or sea weeds as words are always the worst ones to describe someone. And number two, you can have more options to make your prose flow better when you don't have to repeat the same words over and over again. And also number three, it's a good reminder to the reader. Some aspects of the character. Say you write about a character who has lost his eye in the battle, and you only mentioned it once in the beginning of the book. The reader might forget about it if you don't mention it again. But if you refer to him as the Cyclops, every now and then, the reader is reminded that he only has one eye. But this one too, can be a bit problematic if you're not careful. This one comes with a price. These titles you use should be based on some major aspect of your character, whether internal or external. But don't use too many, because things can get really confusing really quickly. See that my character AIDL is referred to as the communists or DICOM rate or even the Soviet. But all these titles are linked together. They have a team, but say I started to refer to him as the tall man or deceased-donor or the conspiracy theorist. You wouldn't have to read much until you, you'd be confused about who's this guy. Again, be specific. If you're going to use more than one or say two titles to tie, those have to be related somehow so you don't confuse the reader. You can also create MS. Humor effect by emphasizing some aspect of the character. May be you have this one, very psi, introverted, humorless character. And you might referred to her as the comic. Think of these titles like instruments. It's nice to have variation and depth in your melody, but too many instruments together only creates a mess. So decide your core instruments and make your prose or song, you can cut out so much fat from your prose by starting to change He's and Cs into more descriptive words, that's making other sentences possibly obsolete. So you can delete them. Experience with these different titles and not using his or Cs and see what works for you. 8. How to Never Experience Writer’s Block Again: We have all experienced it. Maybe we are work, maybe we are a school. We are taking the words a refined minutes, basically counting seconds until we can go home and rights. And you play with your ideas in your head, the characters, the world deployed points, you plan it all out. But then when you finally get there with your cup of coffee and you sit down, nothing comes out. We stare at a blank screen and that blinking cursor, same-size. Minutes go by turning into hours. Maybe you write a word, erase it. Maybe write a sentence, erase it, right, another, erase it. But don't you worry, friend, I have a solution. I know how to never experience writer's block ever again. I used to experience it but not anymore and I will tell you all my secrets. But in order to tackle this colossal problem, we must first understand what writing block is. See, you don't have any Pollack to spend time with your loved ones, right? You don't have any Netflix block. And the USA stare at some black screen instead of beans weren't seeing movies. There's probably not an instant. You're stuck at the YouTube homepage. Not knowing what to watts. Well, why is that? Because u two by Netflix are fun. Well, surely you think writing is fun too. If you do it, you might think writing is the most fun thing to do in the world, but still, you keep staring that blank page and not a word appears. Why? Because you don't know what to write about. No, that is not a good enough of an answer. Oftentimes you don't know what you're going to watch on YouTube either. But still you can find yourself. What seeing five hours of some stupid videos. I know I do. We all have stories. The most boring person, you know, probably has enough stories to fill a bookshelf, Sono. The real reason is you think you are not good enough. The fundamental reason you're experiencing writer's block is fear of failure. You are afraid your writing will suck. So you don't write anything at all. And you can deny this. But this is the truth. And the sooner you are accepted to sooner you will become free. See, we experienced writers block because we want to write something great and we don't want to write something bad. So if you're not writing something great, you are not writing anything at all in order to avoid writing something bad. It simple. Not easy. Simple. But the truth is, riding badly is better than riding nothing at all. Because badge writing can be edited Vader, and forgive my friends here. But sometimes you have to push the turned out of entirely before you can polish it. I like to think of it like this. The first draft is marble, second draft is Hammer, and third ones are sessile. The most important thing about your first draft is two. Dennis it, note your characters, not your midpoint nodes, you plot twists. To finish it, you want to get that whole block of marble before you start sculpting. Marble is only marble and the first draft is only first draft. It's width, your hammer, you bring out the final shape, and it's wheat yield CSO, you make it beautiful and standout. Allow yourself to write bad stuff. You can update bad writing, but you cannot edit no writing. And oftentimes, it's not the writing that's difficult. It's the beginning. So my advice is set up a timer for 15 minutes and just write, allowing yourself are 15-minute window where your writing can be the worst riding on this planet. But make yourself a promise that you will write for 15 minutes no matter what comes out and then you can stop. But more often than not, you will just turn off the timer and keep writing. The most boring person has enough stories to Philip bookshelf. You are Ryder. So you probably have enough stories to fill up the library. So just right, you can always edit later. 9. The Importance of Details: In this final lesson, I want to sort of combine different things that I've taught you to demonstrate you how big of a difference little things can make. Let's take an example. I heard him talk with a man in the bar. Very ordinary sentence. This could be found in pretty much every book on the planet, but I want to break it down before anything else. I would deduce the eye. You don't need that. That's dead weight. The fact that you are telling it implies you already know that both I and heard are empty words here. If you must include yourself in it, consider something like he talked with the man in the bar behind my back or he Talk with a man in the bar right in front of me, but still out drop-down of completely. He talked with a man in the bar, is better leaner because remember, we are cutting out the fat here. Now let's think, what does the sentence tell us? He talked with a man in the bar. There's information there, but it's pretty vague. Next, I tackle the pronoun he. That doesn't tell us anything except the sender. And in many languages, including in my native tongue, we use the same word for both he and see. So it doesn't even tell you that the word he doesn't describe the character at all. So you have to do the describe some someplace else. Thess, fattening pros he is relatively in the word and the sentence remains merely adult statement. Who is he? Sack, topped with a man in the bar to par tender, Talk with a man the bar R cop. Talk with a man in the bar. Our boy talk with a man in the bottom. The I is something I would absolutely chains and the heat is something I would try the chains and everything after that is just your personal preference. So avoid Talk with a man in the bar. Well now we are starting to raise some questions. What is a boy doing in a bar? And of course, who is the man? What's kind of man is, can he be described somehow differently? A boy talk with a big man in the bar. Though beak is quite boring. Avoid tag with a huge man in the bar. Avoid talk with the monumental man bar. Or maybe you'd want to reveal his profession. Avoid talked with a bouncer in the ballroom. Avoids hug with a part sender in the bar. Avoid tart with a cab driver in the bar, or perhaps avoid taught with a monumental cab driver in the bar. C, How the mental image is changing with each and every things we make. Now we have a lot more information. We know a boys in the bar and there is these monuments or cab drivers. And why is he describes kept forever? It must be because his clothes and then what about the work? Because there's a lot of different types of talking. Maybe avoid sad it with the monumental cab driver in the bar. Avoid argued with the monumental cab driver in the bar. Maybe our boy exchanged war stories with a monumental kept traveler in the bar. And now we're getting even more. First of all, there's a boy in the bar and he's talking with this big, big gap driver. And they are exchanging war stories. So it means they both have to know something about war. And what about the bar? East location is important because if it is, I would say instead to maybe I would bear it with AT sectors. Now we are facing a new problem. To sentence is getting pretty long and cluttered. Because the more description you add, two more heavy, you make it a boy exchange war stories with a monumental cab driver in an old dimly lit at bar. Like I said, all these comes to personal preference. And I think now the sentence is getting, its becoming two months. Because if you pair a few sentences statistic, your prose is getting really difficult to read. I would take look at my priorities. What is the important part here, alta characters or two location. And I would focus on that. So in this example, I might take out whole behold description of the bar because the exons in war story is already adding a lot of stuff between periods. But I might say it's the noun. Perhaps. Boy, exchange towards stories with a monumental cab driver in the bump or indice ALU, or lungs or nightclub. So now let's compare. He talked with the man in the bar versus a boy, saints war stories with the monumental cab driver in the pump. I actually might sense the monumental to something shoulder if the pros around this particular sentence was as tic. But let's keep this for the sake of this example. These are only one sentence and the action is basically the same, but the image they paint is completely different with the information they give. Also a nodes. Outside of this example, I'd rather so this conversation happening rather than making this one telling statement. But again, this is only an example point. Being with such a minor changes to your sentence or even a one word, you can sculpt your sentences into a completely different things. And it's worth considering because the debit will hide in the defects. Thank you. 10. Outro: Thank you for watching this course on creative writing. I truly hope you learned at least one thing. I personally like to think that all rules of our writing are more like tools the writer can use. Whether he or C. So decides, it's always nice to know how to do something and not need to do it than have to do something and not know how to do it. If you have any feedback for me, I'd love to hear it, give me a comment or send me a personal message, beaming a review. If you'd like to see more courses on creative writing, find me, let me know what you'd like me to teats, I'd be more than happy to expand this writing course into multipart series. You can find me on places here on the internet with my name says Yet when. Thank you for watching. Thank you for your interest in literature. Thank you.