WHAT TO REMEMBER

 

DO NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND OF YOUR PROSE

Writing is communicating to the reader in a fast paced world. 

Get to the point and it best be one worth the time of your reader.

DITCH THE SELF-DOUBT

Confidence is appealing, not just in romantic partners, but in the prose of writers. 

Certainty in how you express your story is winning. 

A joke told haltingly dies before it is finished ... so will your story. 

Be bold. Be sure. Your story captured you ... it will capture your reader ... if only you believe in it.

LET TRUTH BE YOUR GUIDE

Your reader will "buy" your outlandish premise if only your characters ring true. 

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE hit hard because you "believed" in each family member. You could see they were flesh and blood.

ADVICE IS LIKE PEPPER ... GOOD IN LITTLE DOSES

I can tell you how I would write your story, but only you can tell it your way. 

Read the masters of your genre and see how they did it ... then do it YOUR WAY.

MAKE MISTAKES YOUR TEACHERS

You will learn more from them than you ever will from your successes in prose. 

Miles Davis once said, "If you play a wrong note, play it loud and everyone will think you did it on purpose."

FAMILY AND FRIENDS ARE NOT YOUR AUDIENCE

They will either love your work or pick it to death. Neither response tells you anything useful.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE?

If you craft a story you think certain people will enjoy, you may well misjudge them. You may actually guess correctly.

But if that story did not flow organically from your soul, it will be a chore to repeat it again.

Rather write a story that entertains you. If it sells, great. If not, at least you have grown by writing a full novel.

READ EVERYTHING YOU CAN

A paragraph in a boring article in a magazine found while waiting for the doctor to finally call you in 

so you can wait for him for yet another hour in a cold room getting sicker

can spark a wonderful piece of dialogue for your WIP.

Nuggets of obscure information sowed in your unconscious may provide a bountiful harvest when least expected.

LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN

Not just to the words spoken around you but to the cadence of them, 

the tone of them when emotions run strong, seethe with acid, or lower to the depths of a broken spirit.

Watch how the wrong words can slice deeper than a scalpel, how the right ones strike to the core of a hurting heart to heal.

DO NOT LOSE HEART

Your writing journey may seem long, but the horizon of better things beckon. Keep on writing.