Creative Writing Tips

    • Try Out National Novel Writing Month

    • The non-profit organization, National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo can be found at http://www.nanowrimo.org/. The organization is for writers and works to get people writing. The objective is to get a novel written in a month, from November 1st to November 30th. Having these deadlines will help keep you focused and get you working hard to get your writing out there.
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    • Experiment Using Writing Prompts

    • We've got a ton of great writing prompts on this site. Use them. These prompts will help you experiment with new writing techniques and can help inspire different ideas in your head. Even if the piece you write based on the prompt isn't the one you're looking for, it can help open the floodgates to a new piece.
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    • Avoid Cliches

    • There are a ton of cliches, there's no denying that. Heck, there's actually a movie genre now which "pokes fun" at movie cliches a la Scary Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie. Try and avoid falling into using these cliches unless you can come up with a unique twist for it.
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    • Elmore Leonard - Don't Waste Reader's Time

    • Make sure to write so that your reader feels like their time is being well spent. Cut out the filler words that drag the story and clog up your sentences and spare the details that your reader would skip anyway.
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    • Revision: Proofread Regularly

    • Proofreading a piece isn't just a simple read through of the piece you're working on. It's important to proofread your writing on several occassions with different goals in mind. Doing so will enable you to catch different mistakes and to look at your writing with different perspectives.
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