Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon John Cox
Hi Markman
A tip that I'd give would be to have at least a broad plan of your book before you write even a word. Before I wrote my first book I'd tried to write a few others, but they just went off at tangents and eventually petered out. The difference to me was having a determined beginning and a determined end right from the start - that way all I was doing was joining up the two.
This doesn't necessarily work for everyone - Stephen King says he never knows the ending of a story when he starts writing it, for example - but it was essential for me.
Good luck!
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That's because King is actually Randall Flagg
Seriously, when you're writing, in addition to the already given sound advice by others, be creative with your word descriptions. Try to avoid too many cliches if you can. A thesaurus is your best friend here.
And for crying out loud: DON'T TELL YOUR WHOLE STORY IN YOUR FIRST CHAPTER!!! This has to be one of
the most annoying things that I've ever encountered in writing!!!! Concealing information-particularly about your villain, monster, or antagonist-makes a story so much better!
Let me illustrate this point with a personal experience: A few years ago, I was visiting with an independent author who had published a horror story. It looked pretty interesting, so I bought it. By the time I got to chapter three, I put the book down and never looked at it again. Why? Because the author told me everything about the creature before the story even got going! There was no sense of suspense or wondering about what could happen next: I knew what the creature was, where it came from, how NOT to kill it, how to kill it, what it was intending to do, what it wanted to do, what it looked like from head to foot-all of this that I
didn't want to know all at once! And the sick thing is (at the risk of sounding arrogant here), this guy is selling more books than I am, and I think my story is better!!!!
Let the story unravel, and keep the reader wondering what's going on. It doesn't necessarily have to be some sort of crash-bang plot twist a la THE SIXTH SENSE (although those are cool if they're pulled off right), but what you
don't tell the reader can be just as important and enticing as what you do tell. Remember that.