Creative Writing Tips

    • Revising - Writing Groups

    • One of the best ways to keep you writing and finishing work is when you have a deadline. If you don't ACTUALLY have a deadline, having a regularly meeting writing group is a great way to impose a deadline on your work. It also allows people to provide input and give you further insight on your writing. As such, by joining a writing group, you're able to get people to edit your work, come up with new ideas, and keep yourself on task.
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    • Characterization - Spread the Details

    • People like to get characterization out of the way by bombarding the reader with all of the details at once. This strategy is just going to overwhelm the reader and cause many of the details to be lost. Sprinkle the characterization throughout the story, allowing the reader to learn more about the character when necessary.
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    • Elmore Leonard - Don't Write What People Don't Read

    • Elmore Leonard said "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." This is an important lesson. Think about stories you read. Are there any parts you simply skip over? Identify what causes this and avoid doing it in your own writing.
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    • Writing Ideas - Write Whenever, Wherever

    • The best way to think of things to write about is to constantly write. If you push off an idea you have, it may be hard to get it back later, and it will stall your generation of newer ideas. As such, whenever you thnk of something, at least make a note about it. Then, when you get more time, write it out further to help expand your ideas.
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    • Revision: Write First, Proofread Later

    • When you read over a piece, don't get caught up on fixing grammatical mistakes or poor sentence structure in your first few drafts. Before these details even become relevant, it is important to craft the story you are trying to tell. Most of those poor sentences will likely be cut out before you even reach a final draft, so there's no point wasting time killing them now.
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