Writing Tips

Ten tips for writing

Keep a journal for snippets of conversation, story ideas, newspaper clippings, bus tickets – anything that might be useful in a story.
Make a plan for your story. You need to start with a rough idea of what will happen, who will be involved and where it will be set.
Create a back story. This is the background to your story – what went on before the story started. This information doesn’t all go in your story but helps you to work out why your characters act the way they do.
Start your story with a problem. Give your audience an exciting start to your story. But remember it has to build to a climax, so don’t throw everything at them in the first paragraph.
Add obstacles and build to a climax and resolution. Make sure (if you want a happy ending) that your characters have the ability to overcome the obstacles.
Use detail to add excitement by using all of your senses when you write. What do your characters see, hear, smell, touch, taste and how do they feel about what is going on.
Use dialogue to add interest to your story. Dialogue is also useful as a transition – to join parts of your story together.
Edit your story. Read over the story, asking yourself if you have answered the questions – how, when, where, why, how?
Remove anything that doesn’t add to your story. When in doubt leave it out.
Rewrite any parts of your story that need to be improved. You can add dialogue and detail to make it more exciting. You may need to do several rewrites to get it right. I do!