Top 10 Fiction Writing Tips by Rowdy Rhodes

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Top 10 Fiction Writing Tips By Rowdy Rhodes

The Freelance Writing Organization - Int'l http://www.fwointl.com its associates and owners do not take responsibility for your use of this file nor the contents within. The following information is to be used to expand your knowledge of writing however use of the provided information is not intended to guarantee employment nor income. We are not liable in any way whatsoever by your use of the suggestions and content you are about to read.

Because I write for a living I quite often get asked "How do you write so much?", "Why do you write?", "Where do your stories come from?", "Where did you learn to write?" and a dozen other questions. The question that is the bane of many writers if they are writing in multiple genres is "What do you write?" My answers depend upon my mood. Sometimes I answer politely and honestly. Other times well, I won't repeat what I said here. Tip: Don't ask writers what they write. They'll tell you if they want you to know. What you want to know about is fiction writing. That's why you're reading this, right? OK. Here are some of my suggestions: Fiction writing, whether it be a short story, novella, or novel takes a great deal of imagination as well as logical conclusions to your story, but at all times it should be enjoyable to write. If you don't enjoy writing, don't start because you're not going to make a fortune putting words on paper. The following 10 tips should help you along your way to getting a good story written, to keep your readers absorbed, and keep them interested in what you have created. 1) Poor Writing Is Not Bad

The key to writing well is perseverance, patience and persistence.

I don't profess that you ignore the writing you created that you know is not very good. It's important that you improve your writing skills and that is 75% "just keep writing" and 25% constantly listening to feedback and continued learning wherever you find something that you didn't know. While writing though never selfedit, backtrack or re-read what you have written to any large degree until your first draft is completed. Then go back and re-write what you have written to make it read even better. One thing to always remember never write for the reader and never compare your writing to someone else's. Just keep writing - you will get better by relaxing and letting the story flow our from within your imagination. 2) Why Do Your Characters Exist?

Characters, much like you, need a reason to exist in a story.

Every story you create has a specific number of characters. Those characters need a reason to be in the story. As an example "Rosemary was walking through her grandmother's garden after arriving with her parents for a family visit." Rosemary has multiple reasons for being a character (whether minor or major) in this story. She's there visiting her grandmother with her parents. Everything you write should have a reason for being there. If you think of your own life as you simply walk down a street the vast majority of people and items you see have a reason for being there. This existence is termed "sub-plot" in writing. Every story has this otherwise the characters are flat, making no sense to the reader for being in the story. Ensure when writing a sub-plot it fits in with the overall story. 3) Writers Bleed Into Their Stories

Writing well means you have to give of yourself everything.

It is said that in every good story there is a piece of the author and this is so true that it may very well be one of the most important tips you can learn - give of yourself. I don't mean write about yourself, I mean use or draw upon your own emotions and past experiences to help create feelings in your characters. Whether that emotion be love, hate, the smell of pleasant odours, the enjoyment you experience when your favourite song comes on the radio. These are your emotions, but they can be used, when described in full, as an emotion being felt by one of your characters. "Mary walked into the family room

and found to her surprise her favourite song playing on the radio. It reminded her of her love and loss of her very first boyfriend and how deeply she had been hurt when he dumped her to start dating a cheerleader." Have you ever been dumped? Remember how it feels? Describe it in full and place it into one of your characters. That's why writers bleed when they write. They delve into their own pleasant and unpleasant emotions and experiences, placing them within their stories to make the story real, usually allowing the reader to relate. After all, who hasn't been dumped? 4) Cliché's and Stereotypes

There's no better way to kill a story than to use cliché's and stereotypes.

Avoid cliché's and stereotypes like they're plague. "It rained cats and dogs", "The sheriff wore a white Stetson" "The hero was tall, dark and handsome" all of these will kill a story faster than the plague. The problem is that we've all read or heard them more times than we care to recall. If your audience are children you might be able to get away with the adage or make the hero dressed in white and the bad guy dressed in black, but even then, these days that is not always the case. Batman dresses all in black and he's a good guy. Superman wore blue, Spiderman, red. The point is making up your own expressions and characters. With plenty of imagination you can certainly stay away from stereotypical individuals and dress. Of course, some fiction requires specific dress such as historical fiction where you can't place an 18th century character in 21st century clothing. Doesn't fly. 5) Character Descriptions and Traits

In-depth character descriptions and their traits are one of the keys to a good story.

I use a Character Questionnaire (CQ) that an author friend of mine Helen Dunn Frame http://www.helendunnframe.com created and made available for all authors to use. You can contact her at her web site or you can (at time of publication) find the questionnaire at Inkwell Newswatch Writer's Publication's Archives (and a thousand other articles about writing) at http://www.fwointl.com/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=23&num=513. If you want to search around their archive you can go directly to their search engine http://www.fwointl.com/artman/exec/search.cgi to find thousands of articles. Just type in e.g. plot and choose a year e.g. 2005 and all articles dealing with plot will be displayed. I suggest you set the number of articles for display to be set to 25, not the default five. Finding the right weight or amount of description about a character is up to the author, but don't provide it all at once. She's 5'4", blonde hair, blue eyes, usually wears jeans and T-shirts, because of a childhood accident she requires eyeglasses to read but has no problem with her distance sight, she likes sneakers over hard soled shoes, etc, etc, You've just bored yourself out of your mind. At least I have. And if we're bored odds are your reader is bored as well. Many of these items can be worked in as your story develops. The character's basic look can be given early or later in your story. It all depends on you and your style of writing. Many writers leave some character traits up to the reader to imagine or the writer will refer to them during another character's observation of the first character. "Upon meeting Mr. Peterson she immediately noticed the bulbous, red nose of a chronic alcoholic". That observation could link in with an earlier character trait that you have worked into the story that Mr. Peterson was a heavy drinker. One thing for sure, especially if you are writing a long story, is that having a CQ will always allow you to refer back to forgotten traits such as did he have a scar on the left side or right side of his chin? It's easy to forget when you're writing. Remembering birthdays, locations, settings all can be helped by having a CQ nearby. The CQ also helps you imagine what your characters look like. How they would react in certain situations (a timid character would rarely be a hero type). Also, having the CQ on each character, if you ever decide The Freelance Writing Organization - Int'l http://www.fwointl.com its associates and owners do not take responsibility for your use of this file nor the contents within. The following information is to be used to expand your knowledge of writing however use of the provided information is not intended to guarantee employment nor income. We are not liable in any way whatsoever by your use of the suggestions and content you are about to read.

to write a series of novels or stories it will always be there over the years so you don't forget that Mr. Peterson was a heavy drinker. This section is by no means a full course on how to develop characters and their traits, however another way is to close your eyes and picture the person. What they look like and wear. Try and imagine everything from eye colour to the types of jewelry they're wearing that "day" and jot it all down on a CQ. 6) Work on your dialogue

Every character must have a unique form of talking much like you do.

Dialogue is not easy to write. It's easy to write your dialogue, you know how you speak, but try writing the proper dialogue of an aristocratic heir to the Throne of England! Each of your characters, based upon your answers in your CQ will talk and react in a certain way.

Our notorious Mr. Peterson will slur, another character may be well educated using words you would not normally use in your day-to-day dialogue. It's not your speech the reader wants to hear in their head, it's your character's speech. For me, I've always found it best to take a deep breath, bring the character to mind, say the sentence out loud with any accents or slurs, and then write it. If you can't bring to mind the aristocrat, then search on the Internet for formal speeches they may have made or on places like YouTube where you can listen to the dialect. Television and movies are another great source for speech. Combine all of these together and you will come up with unique dialogue for each of your characters. Combining it with slight descriptions of how the dialogue was said also helps get across to the reader what the person sounds like. The Cockney said "I was downright in the dumpers after she left me for that other bloke." to his companion at the bar. 7) Read, Read, Read

Writers read a lot of books, stories, etc. in order to better their writing by studying other writers' styles.

Why do writers offering advice always say "write, write, write" and "read, read, read"? It's simple. The first is practice. The more you write the better your writing will become and after 10 years you'll look back at what you wrote in your first year and blush with embarrassment.

The second part, reading, is so you can begin to appreciate the actual structure of various writers' writing and the way they go about suspending your reality while you read their work. After all, that's what writers do, they suspend your reality and imprint theirs on you while you're reading their work. Personally I try and read a book twice. One time for the enjoyment and once to dissect the way the writer wrote it. To discover how the writer made my reality disappear. What type of sentence structure? How were the characters introduced to me? Why did the writer convince me to believe the story? All of this is in your hands when you read. It just depends on which way you read the book or story. With the second reading I force myself not to get drawn into the story. I become a literary forensic expert dissecting every sentence. Does it take time? Is it hard? Yes. But all good things usually are and once you learn the art of suspending another person's reality you'll never forget it. The Freelance Writing Organization - Int'l http://www.fwointl.com its associates and owners do not take responsibility for your use of this file nor the contents within. The following information is to be used to expand your knowledge of writing however use of the provided information is not intended to guarantee employment nor income. We are not liable in any way whatsoever by your use of the suggestions and content you are about to read.

Most writers when reading will want to use a phrase or take a well-turned sentence then try and fit it into their own work. My advice is to find your own way. Don't depend on other writers' skills. Don't worry; Your brain will bring you the right phrase or word when the time comes and it will be yours, not taken from someone else's work. I've found in the past that if I do take a piece from someone else, to me it diminishes my work because even though the reader may not (you hope not) recognize the style, I know it's not mine and somehow that takes the satisfaction of creation away from me. I feel as if I can't truthfully say that I wrote it when their pieces are in there. With that said, if you're unsure about how to write about a situation and can't find great words to describe, let's say a waterfall in the middle of a jungle there's nothing wrong with reading about waterfalls and the jungle. Just don't copy or plagiarize what has already been written. The scenes you read about the waterfalls will give you the knowledge you need to create your own waterfall. So research is a lot different than plagiarism. Something you should never forget. And you will do a lot of research. 8) Be Thick Skinned

The creative arts are one of the toughest industries so you also have to be tough.

Bill Cosby, and I paraphrase, once said "There is one sure fire way to failure and that's attempting to please everyone." You will have critics who will either shred your work or constructively critique the piece. For the shredders, ignore them (there are a few other words I'd like to use here about shredders however I know the censors won't let me).

The constructive criticism though is something you should pay very serious heed to. Even if you don't use what has been suggested the suggestions provide you the opportunity to objectively see your work through the eyes of others (the readers). Their opinions do count. It also gives you the chance to improve your writing even further and faster than if you were on your own. So find a trustworthy person who will read your work and critique it without bias. It's like finding a finished 50-carat diamond! See if you can find someone without any hidden agendas and have them proof-read your work before you send it to a publisher. Listen to your proof-reader/editor and take another look at your work through their eyes. See if any of their suggestions can enhance your story. You'll be glad you did. You'll also find critique groups on the Internet however my problem with them is that I don't know these people so I tend to shy away from this style of critique. If it works for you, then great go for it! But always listen with an open mind and a thick skin because sometimes what is said may seem cruel however the proof-reader/editor is trying to help make a better story for you. And normally it doesn't cost you a cent.

Remember that there's not a writer, alive or dead, who has ever written a perfect first draft.

9) First Drafts I started this article off with "Poor Writing Is Not Bad" because you should never worry about spelling or grammar in a first draft. Just allow your words to freely pour on to the page. You'll have a chance to re-visit and clean it all up later. The most important thing is to get the story out. You can fill in the gaps and take out the crap later. I believe it was Ernest Hemmingway who said, "When I write a first draft it's like vomiting words on to a page. Then I have to clean it up. But first I put it aside for a few days, then come back to the story so that I have a fresh perspective."

To clean up what you wrote, first run it through Word or a spell and grammar checker. It will catch a lot of the problems. Then read it and every place you can remove words like "and", "but", "understand?" (When they're not used in dialogue) then do it and replace them with periods. You may have to re-write a few sentences to do this but it will tighten your writing for better reading. As you read through the story you'll find holes needing filling and areas that need to expand. Make notes for later reference. You'll re-write your piece at least three times before giving it to a proof-reader/editor. Make sure to watch out for items that a spell checker will miss like the use of the words: Sea and See. Last but not least, if you know someone who is an expert in grammar, certainly allow him or her to read your work. A person like that can be extremely valuable. Your proof-reader/editor should also be very well versed in grammar, punctuation and the lot. You are not necessarily looking for friends here (although friends are always nice to have especially if they are established authors willing to help) you are looking for people who can make your work read as well as it can possibly read. After they have gone through it all, read through their notes and learn. It will ease the load on them with your future writing because again your writing will improve. As an example this article has been read and re-written 6 times before it showed up here. 1. While I was writing it. 2. Re-reading and editing spelling and grammar manually. 3. Re-reading after running it through a grammar and spell checker. 4. Putting it away for a few days, the re-reading and tightening the sentence structure. 5. Having it proof-read and edited. 6. One final read before posting it here and putting my name on it. 10) In Closing

Enjoy your writing - for life is but a fleeting moment in time not to be wasted.

Writing is meant to be enjoyable. Whoever said it wasn't supposed to be fun was an idiot (See? I get to say "idiot") and I don't even know who said it in the first place. lol If it was you please don't sue me - it's just a joke. Again, I'm just frolicking a little with words in the closing before I let you go. Have fun with writing. If you are writing strictly for the money then you're going to be pretty disappointed. Artistic, creative people tend not to earn all that much contrary to popular belief. Almost every writer I know has a part-time job to supplement his or her income.

If you don't having that gnawing, gut wrenching desire to put words on paper and play with the words so that what you've written will bring someone else joy or knowledge, then you might as well quit while you're ahead. You'll have more fun reading than writing. Then there are those of us who just simply enjoy the act of writing ... such as myself. I've truly enjoyed writing this piece and I hope that you've gained some knowledge from it. Remember ... Relax! Write! Have Fun!