Creative Writing Tips

    • Characterization - Give Your Characters Quirks

    • Think about the people you know. The traits that make each of them stand out in your mind are their nuances and unique tendencies. Don't leave these out of your writing, and instead, give your characters their own unique traits. It will help to make them more memorable and likeable.
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    • Writing Ideas - Don't Quit Your Day Job

    • David Sedaris talked about it in one of his lectures he gave. One of the biggest challenges about becoming a writer is making it your full-time job. Work is one of the biggest inspirations for your writing, and so, making your job writing cuts you off from a lot of that inspiration. You might one day have to quit your job to make time for writing, but don't forget to find your muse.
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    • Elmore Leonard - Don't Use "Suddenly" or "All Hell Broke Loose"

    • While you might feel like something suddenly happened, it's a waste of space in writing. Suddenly gives the reader no visual understanding of what is being described, it makes something sound magical. Use more thorough descriptions of things and the reader will piece together what happened. Likewise, "All hell broke loose" gives no true visual of what's happening in the story. Don't rely on cheap phrases but instead, provide the visual imagery that will cause the reader to make that conclusion on his or her own.
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    • Write What You Know

    • It's often easiest to just be you. Drawing on your experiences and relying on the things you are most familiar with make it a lot easier to write a story. You can take liberties with it but it's easiest to make something up when you have a strong familiarity with it or have similar memories to build off.
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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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