Writing Advice: Helpful Tips And Tricks For The Every Day Writer

1. Introduction: What is going on? Writers and aspiring writers. My name is Michael James, I'm a published author and full-time writer. I do ghostwriting and outlining and coaching for a living, and I absolutely love it. And I'm so excited to share some of my knowledge with you, because creativity is one of the most important things in one of the most valuable things you can have in life. And to show your creativity through some form of art, whether that's painting or music or writing. It's just awesome. So I'm really excited you're here and I hope you're as excited as I am. We are going to be going over some of my top writing tips for writing fiction. And some of these tips are not set in stone. They're not foundationally, you don't have to follow them, but I hope that they give you a new perspective on things and help you see how you can take your writing to another level and really become a better writer. The first and main thing you need if you're going to take this course you need this is so necessary is to grab yourself a notebook that you will call your writing journal. You need a writing journal. It is so important that you write this stuff down because If you're not only just listening to it, but you're also writing it. And then you go through and actually read it and you read it out loud to rehear it. If you're doing all that, it's going to put this in your mind and make it a lot easier to remember. So I highly, highly recommend that you grab yourself a notebook and it is your writing journal that you take all your writing notes in and you read through it every, every now and again, just to refresh your mind of all these things that you've learned and keep, keep making it all foundational to you so that you can become a better writer. So without any further ado, let's get right into it. 2. Tip 1: Grab Yourself A Writing Sweater: Alright, so tip number one and you're gonna think this is a little funny, but hear me out, grab yourself a writing sweater. Now the reason I say this is because it has been scientifically proven that when you wear a certain attire, or you dress professionally, or you always put on the same uniform, you are triggering in your mind telling yourself, okay, time to do this, it's time to work on this. It's time to get ready for school, it's time to get ready for work, whatever it is. And it is the same for writing. Not that writing has to be treated exactly like a job, but it is so beneficial to always do something specific with your attire when you're about to write for me, I always put on one of my writing sweaters. I have three writing sweaters, three different ones. And I always wear one of them when I'm working on one of my novels or working on ghostwriting something or outlining something. I always try to wear one of my writing sweaters because it gets me in the mindset. It get, it triggers in my mind, it's time to write. I only wear this when I'm writing. So it's time to write and it doesn't have to be a sweater, it can be anything. Maybe you have special slippers you wear when you're writing. Maybe you have blue lake glasses you only wear when you're writing wherever the case may be. Get yourself something that can trigger in your mind and help you psychologically prepare so that you are ready to write. And I know it sounds funny, but it's it is proven and it is something that I take super seriously myself. I would highly recommend you grab yourself a writing sweater. 3. Tip 2: Find A Good Pen And Notebook: Tip number two is to find a good pen and notebook. And I already showed off the notebook. I use this as the notebook I like. I'll leave a link to where you can buy this specific notebook on Amazon, I really liked this brand and it's a comfortable notebook for me to write in. But you can also just go somewhere like marshals are big lots or Walmart or wherever to find an awesome notebook. And I would highly recommend finding a pen that you love, a specific ten that you love to write with this is a paper mate ink join. These are the pens that I only buy specifically to write with because they're my favorite pen to write with. And the reason I stress this so much is because if you don't have a good pen and notebook, it's going to slow you down. It's going to be tedious when you're trying to write notes on something or you're trying to write a journal entry of whatever kind in your notebook, you're going to be slowed down by a bad notebook or a bad pen. Also, if you have a good pen and a good notebook, are always going to have cleaner notes. You're going to have something. You are happy to look back and reread. It's a good idea to have a good pen and a good notebook. So I would highly recommend finding a good pen to use when you're writing. And it can be a special pen that you only use when you're writing where it doesn't have to be. I use this for all my office work, but this is the type of pen I always get because it's the pen I like and it's not some cheap Bic pen. I used to not think it wasn't, it wasn't a big deal. Just have these cheap pens. But I have found so many times and I am writing and getting annoyed because I'm scribbling things out or the pen is drying up on me or something. Investing in a good pen and having a nice notebook that's easy to write in and the binding doesn't mess with you and the pages are easy to write on whatever the case may be. Make sure you have a good notebook and a good pen. 4. Tip 3: Write Before You Write: Tip number three is to write before you right now you might be wondering what the heck does that mean? What does it mean to write before you write and you want to write in your notebook before you work on your project and write your story or regular outline or whatever the case may be. The reason you do this is because it's getting you into the rhythm of writing. Well, now let me give you an example. If you are someone who wants to work out and you're working out and you're bench pressing, let's just say, let's say that your best bench press is £135, something low. I don't know. You say Today I want to bench 150. That's your goal. That's what you want to do. If that's your goal, do you just go up to the bar, put £150 on it and just try to bench it immediately? No, of course not. You get into the rhythm so that you can prepare for it. You start with just a bar, maybe the bar is only £40 and you bench that a few times and you add £10 plates, and now it's up to what, £65. And then you're doing that, and then you add £25 plates, and now it's up to 90 or £95, whatever it is. And it keeps going up until you get to 150 and then you're ready to do it. It's the same with writing. Get yourself in the rhythm, into the pattern, into the habit of writing in your notebook first. And you might be wondering, what do I write on? There's so many things you can write on. You can watch these videos, these videos on my Skillshare or, or my videos on YouTube where somebody else that gives writing tips and write things down in your writing journal? My writing journals full of notes from a book I'm reading right now, which is called the writer's journey by Christopher Vogler. I'll leave a link to this down below as well so that you can check that out. It is an incredible book. It's not necessarily you don't have to buy it, but I would highly recommend it if you want to buy something. This is a great book to take notes on. This is the Elements of Style. The Elements of Style is such a good book, is all about grammar and punctuation rules so that you can become a better writer. I have so many other books on writing. I have this one. This is on writers and writing. I have the sincerest form writing fiction, writing fiction step-by-step, Fiction Writers Workshop, the structure of story, Save the Cat. And some of these you may have heard of, some of these you may have never heard of. That's fine. But I like reading about writing and writing down everything I learned in highlighting in those books and underlining things. And that helps me get into the rhythm of writing. When I'm ready to write in my book, it helps motivate me and encourages me and inspires me when I'm learning something and I read some notes in my journal and I'm getting in the habit of writing something down, then I'm like, okay, now I'm ready to turn to the keyboard, turns my story, and start writing. So I highly recommend you write something. You do some research on writing right before you write every single time, getting the habit of learning about writing every single time you want to write. Because if you do that, you're always going to be growing whether you're writing a lot in your story or writing very little, or sometimes you just reread things and you never write anything. Maybe you just write a few ideas down for the next scene, whatever it is, you're always learning more about writing and encouraging and motivating yourself to continue writing. So I use books. You can also watch lectures. There's free stuff on YouTube. You can watch, there's tons of other people talking about writing on Skillshare, whatever the case may be, find access to something where you can learn more about writing and take notes on it for, I don't know, 1015 minutes before you actually start writing and working on your story. 5. Tip 4: Reread The Previous Scene: Tip number four is to reread your previous scene when you are trying to get into the mindset of writing and really delve into your story. You want to do a deep dive into the previous scene and reread it so that you can get your mind in the story. You can start thinking about who your characters are. You can get into the heads of your characters. You can start thinking like the narrator of the story, if you are, how you want to narrate it, you can think about the tone of speech that everyone has. You can think about the feeling of the scene. You could think about was this very tense? Do I need to resolve something? Did I cause conflict? Is there a lot of character building that just happened? Do I need to switch it up? Different things like that? You need to think about these things so that you are prepared to write the next scene. Because if you write something that does not build off of the previous scene, obviously, you're going to catch your reader's attention in a bad way. They're going to be like this does not belong. There needs to be something different or this tone doesn't match, or the, the character used to be a wimp and now he's all the sudden courageous. It is really important that you remind yourself what you previously wrote last time you were writing, whether that was 12 hours ago or 12 days ago or 12 weeks ago, makes sure that you reread your previous scenes, that you can get back into the minds of your characters and know what your reader expects for the continuation of your story. And you can just write so much better that way. So make sure you reread your previous scene. Now I do want to warn you, do not reread too much. Do not go back to the beginning of your story and reread all the way up to the point where you want to start writing again. Doing this is going to cause you to become an editor freak and you're going to start nitpicking about the little things I should change the sentence. I forgot I changed the age of the sky and the age is wrong here and I need to change his hair color or I need to change what happens here are their needs and be another scene here. Maybe I should start over here. I don't like this chapter, I should change this chapter. You're going to start trying to be a perfectionist and it's going to cause you to never finish your story. So do not reread so much that you don't keep going, that you're stuck on the first three chapters restoring. Instead of moving on to chapters 891011, you need to keep moving forward. Save that stuff for when you're going to draft your story. Don't, don't get, don't get behind and just get stuck on what you already made mistakes on. There's always gonna be mistakes. You're never gonna have the perfect story. Save that stuff for later because you already know you're going to have to edit it anyway. So don't don't try to keep fixing everything while you go. If you're fixing a few little things in the previous scene that you just wrote and you're rereading it and fixing those things, That's one thing. But if you're going back six chapters to go fix that chapter before you continue the story. Unless it's detrimental to the plot of your story that you change it. I wouldn't go back and change it. For example, in one of the stories I'm writing right now, I have a character who has a bunch of people in his basement at one scene. And I decided in my outline that no, it's only going to be a single person that's in his basement with him. There's not gonna be multiple people. But I didn't go back to where I mentioned that and fix it right now because I already know I'm gonna have to fix things later on anyway. So it's in my outline. I know I want to fix it. I know I'm not going to forget when I reread that spot, so I'm leaving it for now because it's not worth trying to fix it. And then finding 12 other things I want to fix and getting stuck in that chapter and getting stuck with this mindset of art, it's not good enough. I can't move forward. Try to avoid doing that. Just reread the previous scene and keep moving forward. 6. Tip 5: Know Your Theme: Tip number five is to know your theme. What is theme? The wise words of Christopher Vogler theme is an underlying statement about an aspect of life. So an example of this would be love conquers all, or courage conquers fear. Or the good guys always win in the end, or slow and steady wins the race. These are different types of themes that are underlying in a story and it is a universal truth about some sort of aspect of life. It is something that basically teaches a lesson or show something that everyone either believes or wants to believe. The statement, love conquers all, may not necessarily be true in every part of life, and that may not be something that we see every single day in our lives. We all see love fail in some different aspects of life, whether it's in a relationship or whatever it may be. But that doesn't mean that you can't have that be an aspect of your story in an underlying theme in your story. So think about what is the theme of my story? And even in a tragedy, you need to have some kind of moral truths are universal truth that people are seeing in your story and knowing what your theme is going to help you tell your story better. Something I would recommend if you don't know what your theme is yet, start writing and after a few chapters, reconsider. Think about it again. What is the theme of the story so far? For example, I'm writing story right now and I didn't realize what my theme was until I wrote about six chapters of it. I realized a lot of it has to do with dealing with trauma and he is facing trauma all the time and he has a decision to make. Is he going to go through the trauma alone or is he going to find a friend? That is the overarching theme. Going through trauma alone is a bad idea. I'm not saying it in the most beautiful way. I can probably say that a more poetic way, but you get the point. You need to have some kind of theme that is an underlying truths in your story. It doesn't have to be necessarily said to the reader, but they get the feeling they understand that this is what this story is all about just by reading it. Sometimes it's very philosophical, sometimes it's very simple. Sometimes it's something that some people have to really think about the story to understand. Is this a story where it's like Picture of Dorian Gray, where the theme of about, about beauty fading is really something you have to think about and they have to be semi sophisticated to really realize, or is it something more simple like Shrek saving Fiona and realizing that being alone is not what he needs in life where he really needs is true, friendship and love. So think about what the theme of your story is because it's going to help you write the rest of the story and it's going to help you tie all your scenes together. You're going to start thinking about, Oh, my theme is all about friendship. So how am I going to make this scene have something to do with friendship or how am I going to show the lack of friendship in this scene to really cause tension in my story. And it's going to help you write your scenes a lot better. It's going to help you be more creative when you're trying to think of more scenes in the future. So really define what your theme is as early on as possible and figure out what it is so that you can write your story better. 7. Tip 6: Avoid Adverbs?: Tip number six is avoid adverbs. And now I put a question mark there because this does not mean cut out all the adverbs in your story. When I first heard this tip, I thought that's crazy. Why would you avoid adverbs? Adverbs are part of grammar. Adverbs are part of describing how the verb is being acted upon, how it's being done. You know, I always thought why would you avoid using these? Why wouldn't they say avoid adjectives? And I thought this was a silly writing tip, but then I realized the reason people say to avoid adverse, avoiding adverbs does not mean to cut out every single adverb in your story. The reason people say this is because there's most likely a verb that already means what your adverb is trying to describe. Let me give you an example. He stopped his foot angrily. I'm not going. In the quotation marks. He's saying I'm not going and were describing before. He said I'm not going, that he's stopped his foot. How did he stomp his foot angrily. The word angrily is not necessary in this scenario because if he stomped his foot and then said, I'm not going you already know he's angry, you already know that. So it's redundant. This is just like how when people say He said definitively, he said Truly, he said matter of factly. Those, those adverbs aren't necessary because it's already common knowledge here already. We know he said it truly. We know he said it definitively. Matter of faculty maybe you could use in some scenarios, but a lot of times adverbs are either a redundant or be, they could be removed because you can use a verb that can already described the way that they are speaking or the way they are doing something. And you don't have to use an adverb to describe that. So you don't have to cut out all adverbs, but you need to understand that. The reason you're using an adverb is usually because your vocabulary is not large enough to realize there's a verb you can use instead. So don't cut out all your adverbs necessarily. If there's a better verb to use without using the adverb or if the sentence itself already describes the feeling and you don't need an adverb to show that, then just cut it out in that way. But sometimes adverbs are useful, you can still use them. Just don't use them when it is silly to use them. Don't use them when it's mediocre to use them. Only use them when you feel that it is a better fitting then the verb you could have used or it really describes the feeling in the story when the feelings not really there in the sentence. 8. Tip 7: Use The Setting To Your Advantage: Tip number seven is to use the setting to your advantage. Now what this means is that you want to have the weather, the scenery, all of these little things about the world-building and the things going on around your characters to describe the feeling. So let me give you an example. If you are trying to describe an argument that's happening outside between two friends and they're angry at each other. Maybe have thunderstorms rolling, a thunderstorm rolling in and the clouds are getting darker and there's thunder growling in the background and it's causing a fierce winds coming through and they're shouting at the top of their lungs so they can hear each other over the nonsense going around in the atmosphere and around them. That's going to create a more tense scene. It's going to create the feeling of fear and anger and it's going to cause a lot more tension and conflict in your scene than if they're just, it's just a sunny day and they're screaming at each other. Use the scene to your advantage and think about what do you want to happen in the scene That's going to make it have a certain feeling. Think about like even in real life, when somebody wants to take someone on a romantic date, they might have candles involved, they might have, they might collapse this special wine. They might take them to a fancier restaurant. They might dress up a certain way. They want it to feel a certain way. And that's why they do all of these different things. It causes different feelings to come out. So think about your story in the same way and use the scenery. Use the setting to your advantage so that you can emphasize the feeling you want your reader to have. 9. Tip 8: Show Don't Tell: Tip number eight is to show and don't tell. Now you've probably heard this so many times as a writer, but I want to really explain this out because I feel like people don't exactly understand what this means. Because there's a few different ways that this applies. For example, showing and don't telling could better be stated as describe, don't state. And the reason I say that is because when you say show, don't tell you may not really understand what that means. But if you're thinking about describing something instead of stating something, it might help you realize what you're doing. Instead of using words like he smelled dot, dot, dot or he felt dot, dot, dot. Just describe the way he felt so that we don't need to use that word that tells us how he actually felt. So instead of saying he felt scared, say shivers crawled up his spine. That already tells us that he felt scared, but it shows us how that fear is actually happening in the story. Think about it even when someone says something like I was sad, instead of saying I was sad or I was happy, show that they're sad or happy by saying stuff like my heart broke into two, you know, that already tells me that they're sad. So think about how you can actually describe the feelings and describe the sensory details instead of stating what is going on, instead of saying it was a hot day, say, my skin felt like an egg sizzling on a frying pan. That already tells us it was a hot day or say that sweat drip down my brown, my pit stains. That tells us it was probably hot out. So think about ways that you can do that. Another thing I want to mention about showing and not telling is a lot of times we have this moment in stories where we want to give background info and someone tells a story. But the problem with this is there telling the entire story, telling, telling, telling. She was doing this, she was doing that. This is how this happened. This is how that happened. A better way to have passed stories happen is to really involve your reader. Maybe, maybe have a scene where someone says, Let me tell you a story and then the next chapter is that story happening, but not in a telling way, but in a showing way and you are showing that story take place. So think about ways that you can avoid telling through dialogue and also telling through describing the scenery and instead show it or explain it, describe it, emphasize it. Instead of just stating it. 10. Tip 9: Take Breaks And Get Active: Tip number nine is to take breaks and get active. This is actually something I've been trying to work on more of myself. I do this a lot during the summer because it's a lot easier to get outside and move my legs and get out and about because it's nicer weather out. But during the winter I find myself getting stuck inside and I do not move around as much as I should. But it's important as a writer to get up, take breaks and get active because it's very easy to sit in front of a computer and write only a 100 words in six hours or to even if you sit there for 60 minutes and only write ten words instead of one day, you write 2 thousand words in those 60 minutes. So really take time to take breaks if necessary. Even force yourself to take breaks sometimes, even if it's on a time schedule, you know, every every hour or every two hours, take a five-minute break, even if it's as simple as going downstairs to grab yourself a glass of water, take a drink water, come back upstairs. Now you're refreshed or renewed and you're ready to get back to work. This is something I use when I'm getting over roadblocks in my stories or when I feel like writer's block is coming on and I need to overcome that. Then I'll walk away for a little bit. Sometimes it's as simple as walking downstairs and getting a snack or getting a drink. And other times it's going outside, maybe going for a walk around the block or even going outside to take my dog out and just sit on the back steps and in some fresh air. Some people like to work out. They'll go exercise, maybe do 100 jumping jacks real quick. Maybe it's you do some push-ups, whatever it is, find something to do. And I don't mean don't just go downstairs and go sit on the couch for a little bit like you need to get your blood flowing and you get your body moving. At least, at least get some fresh air, get some sun on you. And if that's not possible, then move around. Get your body moving because it's going to help you to sit back, come back to that story and feel a little more motivated, feel rejuvenated, especially if you're feeling mentally fatigue. It can really help get active. 11. Tip 10: Don't Be Afraid To Skip Ahead: Tip number ten is don't be afraid to skip ahead. Now, when I am writing a lot of times, I will get to a place where I have a scene idea or I'm coming up to the climax, I'm coming up to an exciting point and I don't know how to get there and keep it interesting. It starts getting boring. I start writing scenes that seem bland to me or maybe I just can't think of what to write. I just can't figure out how to get to that destination. Something that has helped me so much is to just skip ahead, skip to the exciting part, right, that part, and then try to go back and rewrite it. Even if you don't have a plan, you don't know where the story's going yet. Skip ahead, think of something new that you want the story to include and start writing that point. Now you can go back and say, Oh, now I have something to aim for. I have something that I'm writing towards. Now. I just need to figure out how to get there and it's a lot easier to think of your story that way. One of the books I published in the past, I came to, I think it's like 19 chapters longer, 20 chapters long. And it was in Chapter 16. I just felt stuck. I could not think of how to get to the end of the story. So what I did is I wrote chapter 181920, skipping ahead. And then I went back and wrote Chapter 17, that filler chapter I could not figure out. So hopefully this is helpful to you. It is, it really beneficial to me? It's what I do in all my stories anytime I get stuck. And there's just nothing else that is helping me to get over that obstacle. Even if I'm taking breaks, even if I'm trying to do research, even at five, I'm trying to write down new ideas for that scene. If nothing's really working, don't, don't sit on it for so long that you're wasting your time. Skip ahead and keep moving forward because you're going to figure it out sooner or later. It might it might not be in that day, it might not be in that week, but you're going to figure it out. So skip ahead so you can keep moving forward and keep that story rolling. 12. Tip 11: Force Yourself To Write?: Id number 11, force yourself to write. Now, there is this myth out there, this misguided belief that you should never force yourself to write that is so wrong, that is so, so wrong. You should always force yourself to think of it like anything else. If you want it to be a better if you wanted to be a better runner and you wanted to run harder, you wanted to run fast, you wanted to beat your best time. You wanted to be a better runner. Do you think that telling yourself, I don't have to run today, you know, I don't really feel like it, so I'm not going to run today. Do you think that's gonna make you a better runner? Come on, pupil, we gotta keep writing. We got to keep pushing through, even when we don't feel inspired that day, we don't feel creative. The brainstorming is not working. We feel mentally fatigued or tired. We have a headache, whatever the whatever the excuse is that day we got to keep writing. If we want to call ourselves writers, we better be right in our story. Otherwise we're not truly writers are We were just, you know, we're just creators of an idea. We're just brainstorming, or is that never actually finished? So don't be that person. Be someone that can call themselves a writer confidently, because you do force yourself to write, you do force yourself to keep moving forward. Even if, even if you can't think of anything for your story, work on something else, work on a short story, come up with a new idea. Just start writing something random. Maybe look up some writing prompts and try to write something else. Maybe write notes on somebody teaching about writing like this. Or maybe you watch a YouTube video, you watch a lecture, or you listen to a writing course, or you listen to a mentor wherever it is, keep writing, even if you're journaling about your day, whatever it is. If you got to keep writing and if you're not writing, you're never going to improve. You're never going to get to that day of feeling inspired. You know, when I first started writing, I used to only write when I felt inspired. But you can't, you can't write like that because that day is never going to come. If you don't keep practicing writing. If you keep practicing writing than that day is gonna come a lot more often. You're going to feel more inspired every day you're going to feel more creative. You're going to get better at breaking through that barrier of I don't want to write today. So don't let yourself get into this mindset of I'm never going to push myself to write. I'm only going to write when I feel inspired. Like we have to get that mindset out of here. Because if you want to be a good writer, you got to push through, even if that means you don't want to work on your story, that's okay if you say, I'm only working on my story when I'm inspired, at least write something else, at least write about your day or rate, right, in a devotional or bright, whatever it is, you got to keep writing because if you're not writing, you're not improving and you're not growing as a writer. So keep pushing forward and keep writing. 13. Tip 12 Study Other Stories: Tip number 12 is to study other stories. Now there are so many stories out there you can be looking at and learning from whether it's some of the best written work you've ever read or it is one of the best movies you've ever seen, whatever it is, if it's something that speaks to you, if it's something that you're like, This is my number one movie or my number one story I've ever read. If that be the case, There's things you liked about it for a reason, figure them out, study that story, write down some notes on why you liked the beginning, why you liked this character, why you liked the stories ending, whatever the case may be, write those things down because you can learn from that author, you can learn from that movie producer or that, that script writer, whoever, whoever put that story in front of you, you can learn from them and you can apply it into your own story. You can learn how to use the different emotions that they use in their story. You can learn how to build characters that they build and make them vivid and live and real. You can learn how to make scenes that are impactful and whatever the case may be. You want to study stories for me personally, I loved the story Shrek. I loved the Back to the Future series. I loved the Harry Potter series. Those are some of my favorite movies and I love to just, some, It's something I've done in the past to just sit down with a pen and write down things like, how did the intro begin? Why did the wide the author choose to have the intro begin this way? What happens? What is the conflict in this story? What is the main theme of this story? Why do I like this character asking yourself questions like that and just writing on, writing down the answers is so beneficial, you can learn so much about why an author or a storyteller, it uses their character in such a way or they use the scene in such a way or why they're telling the story in such a way. I also just read the Picture of Dorian Gray and that was the first book that I annotated the heck out of that book. I probably have like 67 bookmarks in there. I underlined a bunch of lines to learn from, and I just loved that book. It was so good and there's so much to learn from it. So I made sure to underline as much as I could that I loved and I can't wait to go back and look at that book and see all of the great lines that are underlined and reread from women, gleaned from those words and really think about what they mean in the story. And then think about how can I make my story this impactful? How can I make my story speak to my readers just like this book spoke to me. So make sure you're studying other stories. You can learn from the best. Because if they got there, if they got their story on in a movie or they got their story published as a novel of fits, a classic, or it's something that's sold millions, Then there's a reason for it. And they did well for a reason. And it's not just because they're famous. They told a good story and people enjoyed it just like you, and there's a reason for it. So try to figure those reasons out. You can apply that to your own story. 14. Tip 13: Read!!! A Lot!!!: You've probably heard this one before, but Tip number 13 is to read a lot. If you want to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. Now, there's some people that may tell you you don't really have to read that many books if you want to be a good writer, that's not true. If you want to be a good writer, you ought to be courteous enough to read other people's work. Like how selfish of you, if you want to be a writer and never read anyone else's work and I'm not trying to offend you if that's you and you don't read it all. But I want to encourage you that you read a lot because you can learn so much from other stories. And not only that, reading is great reading, so enjoyable. How can we expect people to read our work if we're not willing to read ourselves, It's just like, What if there was a carpenter and this carpenter loved to make furniture. He made chairs, he made tables, he made shelves, whatever the case was, he is making all kinds of different furniture. But what if everything looked kind of basic? Everything looks the same. You always use the same, would always use the same stain. And a friend told him, Hey, I'm a carpenter to, but I know this, this and this about carpentry and I'd love to teach you. And that Carpenter said, No, I'm going to stick with what I know because what I know is going to work. Usually say boneheaded about it. He was like, No, I don't need your help. I can do it on my own. I could figure things out on my own. That's a mindset he has. Do you think his work is ever going to expand and become more creative? Yeah, maybe a little bit. But is it going Is he going to gain the knowledge from his friend? Probably not. He's not willing to learn from them. Even think of it this way. What if, what if a child was trying to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube, right? They're trying to solve a Rubik's cube, and they have an older sibling that knows how to solve Rubik's cube. And they say, Hey, I can teach you how to solve that. I have instructions that you can follow if you'd want to learn from them. And that child said, no, I'll figure it out on my own. Will that child ever figured out possibly, maybe maybe if they're really smart and they really try. But is it going to take them a lot longer? Obviously? Yeah, if they had instructions, if they had a mentor, if they had someone helping them, they could definitely learn a lot faster. It's the same with writing. If you want to be a good writer, you ought to be learning from the best. And that doesn't mean just listening to lectures and just watching movies. You ought to be reading because there's something that words can do, that screen cannot do. Words can paint a very vivid picture in the mind of a reader. That visuals cannot do. Visuals takeaway from that. They don't allow your reader to use their imagination as much because they're doing the hard work for them. They're putting the visuals there. But words, if you are good with words, you can paint a more beautiful picture that might be unique to every reader. It might be exactly the same for every reader. Either way, it is going to be something that a screen cannot do because the screen already gives that picture, whereas words allows your reader to create that themselves. And there's just an experience from reading that no one can take away. There are different books that when someone mentions the name of the book, I think of a scene in my mind when I read that book, and I never saw a movie for that book. But I can think of the scene because I painted such like the author painted such a beautiful picture that I was able to capture. And I remember it. And you can do the same thing. But if you want to do it well, you ought to be reading and learning from other writers that have done it just as well. 15. Tip 14: It's Never Too Late To Outline: Tip number 14 is that it's never too late to outline. Now what I am talking about here is there are times when we have story ideas, we get creative and we start writing a story without even really thinking about where it's going or what the actual plot is. And we just get excited. I'm sure you've had that moment where you're like, Oh, I have a great story idea. I just got to start writing it. And you write a scene down, you're right, the first chapter down, whatever it is, and you don't really have an idea of where it's going. You're just writing and going with it until you get stuck. When that moment comes, I want you to know it is never too late to outline. I do this with my stories all the time, especially when I'm writing short stories or writing something for a client and I'm ghostwriting forum. Sometimes outlining can be stressful in the beginning. It might, you may not know in the beginning, where do you want to go with the story and you don't want to try to flush everything out and outline it, you just want to start and that's okay. I do that all the time. It is actually super beneficial for me to just start a story and start writing until it gets stuck and then outline the ending. Now, you don't have to outline your story necessarily, but think of it this way. Say you were building a house with Legos and you bought a box and you have this picture of a house and it came with an instruction manual, but you say, I don't want the instruction manual. I'm just going to use the pieces that came with it and build my own house. And then I'm just going to try to make it look like this picture. And the picture shows that it has a roof, it has a window, it has a door, it has four walls. You know the basic layout. You can try to figure it out and you might get pretty close, right? You might make something look like a house, but you might have some leftover pieces, you might run out of pieces. It might be a little too tall, it might be a little too wide, it might be a little awkward. But you're going to get a basic shape. You're going to get a basic layout of a house and it's going to look semi similar to the picture probably, right. But if you follow that instruction manual, don't you think it'll look perfect, exactly like that picture. It's the same with writing a story. You can write a story without instructions. You can write a story without an outline. You don't necessarily need it. But if you have an outline, it can really help tie your story together. It can really help perfect. It can really help give it more structure, give it a better foundation, and make it look more like a story. So I say all that just to encourage you to not feel like Dang, I already started the story. I should have outlined it and now I'm stuck and I don't know what to do. Never feel that way. You can always start outlining it. I think I've already mentioned this in a previous video, but I'm going to mention it again. There were times in the past where I have written up to a certain point and then I don't know what's going to happen next. I have some ideas, but I don't know how to write a specific chapter. What I do is I skip the head and when I skip ahead, I usually outline a little bit. I usually outlined the next few chapters, the basic structure, the basic idea of what I want, and then I write them because it helps me when I go back to that moment where I was stuck and figure out where to go with the story. I hope this is helpful to you. Make sure that you don't forget it's never too late to outline. You can always start outlining, even if you've already written the beginning or the ending, you already have up to 15 chapters written. That's okay. It's never too late to outline. 16. Tip 15: Know Your Character's Weaknesses: Tip number 15 is to know your characters weaknesses. A lot of times when we're writing stories, we already know all of the strengths of our characters. We know that, for example, a night is good at wielding a sword. We know that he has agility. He's able to dodge his foes. We know that he is brave. We know that he is courageous. We know that he knows how to ride a horse. Those are basics about a night, but it's important to think about what are my characters weaknesses, because weaknesses are usually what make your character stand out. They are the main thing that make them unique, and that's the same with us. All of us have basic things that we're good at. You know, maybe we're good at. It can be even simple things where we're good at speaking English, were good at dressing appropriately. We're good at going to work every day. We're good at driving. Well, maybe we're not all good at driving, but you know what I mean? We're all good at simple things and then we all have little more quirky things that we're good at Lake. Personally, I can solve a Rubik's cube. That's not something everyone can do, but that's something I'm good at. You know, some people can read really fast. Some people can type really fast, some people can. So some people can play basketball, some pupil can draw, some people can write whatever it is. Everyone has different strengths too that are unique to them. And these are the common things that we're good at usually giving to our characters. We know what their strengths are, basic and unique. We can figure those out. But it is so important to not forget that your character should have weaknesses as well. So your character's unique weakness could be fear, it could be social anxiety. Maybe they are overweight, maybe they are not very agile. Maybe they, maybe they get stuck in a loop where they're lying to people a lot, whatever it is, you need to figure out what your characters weaknesses. Because if you can figure out what their weaknesses, you can use that against them in the story. That's what your reader wants. They want the conflicts to come out. They want the tense moments. They want to be full of suspense, wondering when your main character is going to overcome that obstacle, that thing that they're struggling with. If you point out to your reader early on that this is a flaw in the main character. They're going to be thinking, Oh, I can't wait till he has to deal with that. I can't wait to see how that causes turmoil and struggle in his life. I can't wait to see how that's going to mess up this relationship. Or that's how, or how that's going to ruin this adventure, whatever it is, think of what your characters weaknesses and use it against them. If your character is afraid of spiders, make sure that there's a scene where they're fighting a big spider if your character is really bad at baseball. But the whole plot is about them signing up for the baseball team, then they're going to have to overcome that obstacle obviously. And that's going to be something they have to learn and they have to start doing better at, even if they're not the star player, they have to do well with it. If your character is an orphan and they deal with grief and they deal with the loss of their family and loved ones, then that should be something they struggle with throughout the story and it should cause them to doubt themselves, to feel lack luster and feel like they can't have confidence, whatever it is. So think about what the weaknesses of your characters are so you can use it against them. Creating conflict in your story, causing some tension to happen. And now they're not a perfectionist. And you can actually make them feel more realistic because they're overcoming obstacles just like we do in everyday life. 17. Tip 16: Give Your Character A Ghost: Tip number 16 is to give your character a ghost. Now, this kind of goes along with the last tip I just talked about where your character should have weaknesses. But this is a specific thing that is shown in the beginning of the story that comes back to haunt them or to bite them in the butt later in the story. A good example of this is Batman. Batman has lost his parents and we know that that is the ghost of his past, haunting him throughout all of the Batman movies that you see, it's brought up in a lot of them that he is an orphan, that his parents were murdered, that this is one of the reasons he fights crime. That is exactly what you want to do with your character. You want to have something haunting them in their past, something that gives them a reason to doubt themselves or gives them reason to want to give up on the quest that they are on. It has to be something that is making things hard for them to deal with because they have this thing haunting them in the past. Maybe they made a huge mistake years ago, never forgave themselves for it. And now they are dealing with an obstacle very similar, bringing back bad memories. And they are afraid to move forward because they don't want to make the same mistake. You see this a lot of romances where someone, maybe they lost a loved one or they never experienced love in the right way, or maybe they were abused when they were younger, wherever it is. And then they get into this relationship and it's flourishing, that's beautiful and everything. But then it gets to a moment where they're like, no, I have to break this off because I don't know how to love. I don't deserve love and because of my past, I can't have you. I don't deserve you and I'm not worthy, so it's better for you if I leave. That's something that's very common in romances. And then later in the story they realize how wrong they were. They come back together and love each other. But you can do that in all kinds of stories. Give your character some kind of ghost, something that haunts them in their past, something that holds them back. Maybe it's missing someone, maybe it's loving someone, maybe it's, it can be something that has to do with grief. It can be something that has to do with a pride issue. Maybe they have depression, maybe they are still trying to overcome depression. Maybe they having anxiety, whatever it is, think of a ghost of the past, something that can be almost like a trigger in their life. That when something similar comes up, it reminds them of that, brings them back to a dark place and they have to overcome that little obstacle every time it comes up in their life. 18. Tip 17: Give Your Villain Reason: Tip number 17 is to give your villain reason. It is really important that your villain is not someone who just does evil for the sake of evil, but they are actually following a purpose. They have a reason for what they do. Think of Lord far quad from the movie Shrek, for example, why is he evil? Why is he the bad guy? Because he wants power. He wants to be in control. He wants to be king. That's what He desires, and that's why he does what he does to him. It doesn't matter if what he's doing is just or not. As long as he can become king and be powerful. He doesn't mind what obstacles he has to face, whether it's killing an ogre or not, he doesn't care. That's what makes him who he is, has to be the same for your villain or your antagonists. They have to have reasons for what they do. They can't just be evil for the sake of evil. They have to want to be evil because they're worshiping something or they're selfish, or they want justice in their own way, shape, or form. They believe what they're doing is actually right. Whatever the case may be, they don't even have to believe what they're doing is right. They could even believe it's wrong, but they need to outweigh that wrong with the value of succeeding with their goal in reaching their victory in some way, shape, or form. So, using the example of Lord far quad, again, think of how does he say I'm doing this because I'm evil and I like being the bad guy. No, he says he's doing this because he wants to be king. That outweighs doing evil to him. He doesn't care that he's doing evil. If it means that he can become king, there's something in the end that he desires more than doing evil. Think of like bank robbers. Why do they rob banks is because they want to hurt people and be evil and have people get scared. Probably. That might be part of it if their power hungry, but for the most part, they want money, they desire money, and they don't care if they have to put people through a fright, if that means they can get money. So make sure that your antagonist has some kind of reason behind what they do. Or they will be kind of bland. And they will just look like someone who is doing evil for the sake of evil. And that's not as enjoyable to read. 19. Tip 18: Read Your Dialogue Out Loud: Tip number 18 is to read your dialogue out loud. This has been so beneficial for me, especially when working on dialogue heavy scenes. If I have someone read it to me, especially if it's a younger person reading it to me, whether it's one of my nieces or nephews that are only around 13 to 16 years old. And they read one of my lines to me. I can hear where they're messing up. I can hear where they're stumbling as they read it. I can hear where the words don't come out the way I want. They're not emphasizing the parts I want them to emphasize. And that causes me to realize, Oh, okay, this part is a little funny. This part's a little clunky. I need to rewrite it. I need to fix this. It makes you realize if the people in your story or speaking in a way that it's actually beautiful because dialogue can truly be a beautiful thing. So many people think that dialogue is a boring thing to write. It's hard to write, and it never comes out the way they want. You have to think of dialogue in a poetic way. Not every single line is going to be poetic, I understand that. But if you look at some of the best written stories, look at their dialogue. Why is their dialogue interesting? What makes it engaging to read? Why do you enjoy it? Why do people quote some of the dialogue and movies? It's because there's poetic parts in it. There's parts that the writer emphasizes something beautiful in the dialogue. Now, I also want to mention, when you are writing dialogue, make sure that you don't make it too realistic. You don't want a story with realistic dialogue that includes ums and likes and whatever, whatever else you can think of. In real life. We're awful speakers. We use run-ons, we use fragments. We don t know what, we don't even know sentence structure very well. We use the wrong vocabulary pretty often. We curse a lot. We take God's name in vain a lot. We all sorts of things. You don't want your dialogue to be full of these fillers that we use in real life. You want it to be intellectual, you want to be intelligent. You want it to be enjoyable for your reader to read. Your dialogue should move from point a to point B. And it should be done in an engaging way. It should be something that is actually enjoyable to read from the reader, even if they're not a big fan of dialogue and they just want to get to the action scenes. That dialogue should be filled, a suspense should be filled with interests, should be filled with things that make your reader smile while they're reading it. So make sure that your dialogue is read out loud so you can catch all the little, the little clunky parts that don't sound right when they are read. So make sure you read your dialogue out loud, whether it's you're reading out loud or someone else reading it out loud to you, I would really recommend someone that's younger, like a teenager reading it to you. Because even if your book is gauged towards adults, obviously unless you're writing an explicit scene and you don't want teens reading that. If you have a teenager read your dialogue and they're struggling to get overcome things and it's probably too hard. It's probably it's probably not good. It should be so simplified that they can read it. And if they are putting the emphasis in the right places, they're able to read it in a flowing way. It's easy for them to get each word out and they are not stumbling over every other sentence, then it's probably a decent dialogue. So make sure you read your dialogue out loud. Whether it's someone else reading it to you or you're reading it yourself. It's really going to help strengthen your dialogue and overall just make it better. 20. Tip 19: Know The Three Writing Goals: Number 19 is to know the three writing goals and keep them in the right order. Now if you don't know what the three writing goals, let me explain. The three writing goals go in this order. First, you have a goal as a writer. Secondly, you have a goal for your character. And thirdly, you have a goal for your audience. So going through these, the goal for the writer is to write the story they want to, right? Like you want to write a story that you're telling. You want your story to be told and heard, right? That is your goal to have finished the story, to have a satisfying ending, right? That is your goal. The second goal is for your character. Your character has a goal in the story, whether that's to defeat the villain or to get the girl or to find the buried treasure, whatever it is, your character has a goal and they need to reach that goal, right? And then lastly, your audience has a goal and their goal is to be entertained, satisfied. Maybe if it's depending on the genre, maybe they want to be scared. Maybe they want their heart to melt, maybe they want to, whatever it is, they want to feel emotion from your story and they want to be entertained. And they might even want to learn something. They might want there to be a moral to the story. These are the three goals you have as a writer and you need to have them in the right order. So to have them in the right order, you need to first think of your audience. Think of what the audience wants to have. They want to be satisfied, they want to be entertained. So the first thing you wanna do, entertain your audience, how well? Secondly, you want to focus on your character. You want to entertain your audience by having your character reach a goal. And how are they going to reach a goal by telling the story you want to tell? Those are the, that's the order you want your goals to go and you want to entertain your audience by having a character reach a goal through a story that you want to tell. That is the three goals of a writer and the reason you want them in that order is because if you put those orders differently than the focus is not going to be on the audience being entertained anymore. And that is paramount to the other goals. Your goals should follow suit. Because if you want to entertain your audience, then obviously you need to have a character reach a goal. And if your character is going to reach a goal, then obviously you need to write a story. Now if you did that backwards and you said, but I want the story to first focus on my goal of writing the story, having my story be told the way I want it to be told. Well, the problem with doing it that way and having the spotlight on yourself instead of your audience is that you're not going to think of what your audience wants. And that can be dangerous just because if you're thinking about yourself instead of your audience, there's a good chance you might write something your audience does not like. So think of what your audience wants. Think the theme of the story, that genre, the story. Think of why your, why your reader is reading the story that you're writing and think of what they want to be told. And that's not to say that you shouldn't take liberty in having your own spice and the story, having your own mixing your own things in there. There's nothing wrong with that, but make sure that your reader is more important than yourself. When writing, you want to write selflessly. You want to write a story that focuses on your reader being entertained more than writing some story where you kill off the main character because you think it's a good idea when your reader might not like that. So think about them first and then think about what your character needs in order to reach their goal. And then think about yourself and what you want your story to have. 21. Tip 20: How To Use "Yes, But; No, And; Yes, And; No, But": Tip number 20 is to use yes but no and yes or no, but for your conflict. Now, when you are writing conflict, think about these four different ways you can continue conflict or endure conflict. So for example, perhaps you have a character that is fighting some ogres. You can say, yes, he stuck the ogre in the leg with a knife, but the ogre was not affected by the wound. That is an example of how you can continue conflict. Another one would be, no, he swung at the ogre and missed. And the ogre got an attack off that wounded your main character. So that's just an example of how you can continue your conflict. Now, a way to end conflict is, yes, he stuck the ogre with the knife in the chest and the wound was damaging enough to kill the ogre or the ogre fleet. That would be a way to end the conflict. And then another one would be, no, he could not get off a, an attack that hurt the ogre. But a loud noise from the army coming from behind caused the ogre to run away. You know, these are just different ways that you can have your conflict continue and progress or endure conflict. And having these four little phrases in mind when you are writing about conflict can really help you to either continue with your conflict or endure conflict. Now, obviously, you may not use these exact words, yes, and by knowing and, but you may you may think of it in that way so that it helps you continue writing your conflict. So I personally use these when I am writing an outline, so I will say yes but no end or yes and no but for when I am continuing conflict or ending conflict, so I might say, yes, he finally made a move and flirted with the girl, but she was uninterested in him. And then when I actually write that scene, I can actually extend that out and show how that conflict happens. Or I might say, no, he was too afraid to talk to wear. And he made a fool of himself when he tripped and fell and she laughed at him. And then if I were to end the conflict, maybe I had that. We've seen progress but I didn't know how to end that scene. I can say yes. Finally, they talk together and she accepted his invitation to a date where I can say, no, he tripped and made a fool of himself and she laughed at him. But afterwards she was, she helped him get up. And then they talked. That can all lead to more scenes and how I want to progress a scene or indices. So use these when you are thinking of how to write your conflict and whether you're outlining a scene or trying to think of how you're seeing should progress or come to a conclusion. These are super beneficial for continuing or concluding your conflicts. 22. Tip 21: Have A Promise At The Beginning Of Your Story: Tip number 21 is to have a promise at the beginning of your story. Now, this promise does not have to be something that is directly connected to the plot of the story. But it's important that your reader attaches to something that is connected to your character, hoping that it happens by the end of the story or that they progress from the promise. It's at the beginning of the story. So let me give you an example. If you look at the movie Star Wars, um, if you look at episode for a New Hope, you see Luke Skywalker on this desert planet. And there's this one scene where he's staring up at the sky, wishing for adventure, wishing that he could have some kind of adventure in the stars. And then that promise is actually answered throughout the story when he does go on this crazy adventure, it even goes beyond fulfilling that promise by having him become a Jedi or an apprentice and being a hero and saving the day at the end of the story. So having a promise is super beneficial because it kind of foreshadows what is going to come in the story, even if it's not directly connected to the plot or it's indirectly connected to the plot. He does go on an adventure, but was that the main point of the story? Not exactly, but it is connected in some way. Another example is I just outlined a story for one of my clients. And in that story, they wanted their main character to be a novel writer, but that wasn't actually connected to the story. It was a romance where she was having issues with her husband and there was conflicts in between the relationship and different ribs going on. And by the end of the story they get back together and they love each other. So what I did to give her a promise in the beginning of the story, I had her struggling to work on her novel and she had a deadline to hit to have it finished by, or her publisher was going to drop her. Which just causes another conflict to enter the story because even though it's not directly connected to the romance and the plot of the story. It's connected to the character and it gives you sympathy for the character. And throughout the story, she keeps neglecting to write her romance and she can't figure out how to write this story. And it kind of connects because she's having issues in her relationship and she can't connect with their husband. But by the end of the story, when her and her husband are back together there in a loving relationship. Again, she is working on her novel and she's just finishing writing it. And she is so excited to send it to the publisher because it came out perfect. So you can see how it connects in a little way in the promises fulfilled through the story. So hopefully that is helpful to you because it is really important that you give something that helps your reader feel sympathy for the main character. And that little thing that they're hoping for the main character is actually fulfilled sometime throughout the story. 23. More Coming Soon!: Those are all the tips I have so far in this course. And if you want to know more writing tips, make sure you follow this course. I will be updating it more in the future and sharing more of some of my favorite writing tips and explaining them out for you. And yes, so make sure you follow me on Skillshare so that you can always come back to it, see when it's updated, see when there's new videos and you get updated that way. You can also find me on YouTube if you want to see some of the other things that I'm talking about, my YouTube channel, I go through some of my notes on that I'm journaling about. And I also talked about other writing tips over there. So check that out and make sure you go to the description below so that you can see all of the links for some of the best resources for writing advice that I can highly recommend to you. A lot of them, I have read myself or I have heard great things about and I want to share them with you. Obviously, these are not necessary. You don't have to spend your money on these things to be a good writer, but they would highly benefit you. So I wanted to share them below, but yeah, stay tuned. I will have more videos. I appreciate you watching. Hopefully, I'll have more videos for you soon.