5 Neil Gaiman Insightful Tips For Beginning and Aspiring Writers
Ever since joining Masterclass and taking Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass on writing, Mr. Gaiman has been one of my favorite authors to listen to and learn from.
It is especially great for aspiring writers, whether you are a beginner or not.
As aspiring writers ourselves, when Neil speaks about writing it’s hard to not get inspired and want to create better stories and more interesting stories.
The way he talks about writing makes you want to be adventurous in your writing and throw caution to the wind. Not every idea has to be the pinnacle of all writing ideas ever. Just write down the idea in your idea journal and write a short story for the ideas that are really stuck in your head.
Neil is very good at motivating aspiring writers to go ahead and just write and not worry about everything coming out perfect the first time and his career speaks for itself.
So with that in mind for our aspiring writers, here are some great writing tips from Neil Gaiman:
# 1 Write.
I love it.
For years I’ve lived under the principle of just write. Just get it out on the page. Don’t stop and think about it, just write and get out it and then come back and think about it later.
It is easy for me and other aspiring writers personally to get caught up in trying to think out every corner of an idea and that it has to be perfect in order for me to get started.
But certain professional writers will tell you that that is a paralyzing fate and I couldn’t agree more, so I just love this simple advice from Mr. Gaiman.
Write. Just Write.
Don’t overthink it.It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time. It really doesn’t have to be perfect at all, but if you don’t get the story out, no one will ever read it and no one will ever be able to enjoy it. And there are too many stories that have never been told or heard for this reason alone and the world is worse off for it.
# 2 It’s Your Writing, You’re Allowed to do Whatever You Like With it.
As aspiring writers, we have to be very careful not to let others change it away from what you really want it to be.
The thing is, everyone has an opinion, even us at DTWT. I have my certain opinions on what elements of storytelling make a great story and my wife does too, and we don’t always even agree with each other.
The important thing here is that you have to feel confident in what you want the story to be and you MUST do your best to tell it as such without worrying about others’ opinions, just tell your story the best way it can be told and that’s all you can do.
# 3 Write the Story the Best You Can. Write the Story the way it NEEDS to Be Written.
At the end of the day, just do your best to write the story you see. You know the story and you’re the only one that knows the story (unless you are co-authoring of course.)
Envision each moment in your imagination and do your best to put the words out so that your reader will be able to enjoy the adventure, the mystery, the suspense, the way you saw it and felt it.
Make them feel what your characters are feeling, the pain, the joy, the surprise. Make your reader see what you see so that you are just passing along the story to someone else so that they could tell it next.
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# 4 Fix It, But Remember that Perfection is Like Chasing the Horizon.
Perfection is an impossible task.
As aspiring writers, we can’t fall into the trap of editing over and over and over and never being satisfied with what it turns out to be.
At some point, it is like a child. You have to let it go make noise of its own and see how it does out on its own.
If we wait until it’s perfect we’ll never let it go and it will become nothing.
# 5 Put it aside. Read It Later Pretending As You’ve Never Read It Before.
I love this advice and I couldn’t express more how important it is in the writing process for aspiring writers. As a copywriter and blogger, I have made this a priority in my work and do it with almost every piece I write.
You’d be shocked at the things you see differently a day later or even a couple of hours later.
I am very much of the opinion that we as aspiring writers should write it all out first without editing almost anything.
Writing involves creating whereas editing involves more deep thinking. They are a little different in terms of work and energy so it seems to be a better workflow to do them separately. (Of course, you’ll end up doing some writing and editing simultaneously, but for the most part, try to make them different sessions in your workflow.)
As aspiring writers at some point, you’ll get very good and won’t feel like you need to edit much, but at first, you want to do your best to save your editing for after the entire document exists in its first draft.
Minor edits are okay but don’t get lost in the paralyzing habit of editing over and over and over again and not moving forward.
The best way for aspiring writers to keep moving forward is to just keep writing and come back to edit once the entire first draft is done.
I hope these writing tips help you as much as they have helped other aspiring writers!
If you’re aspiring writers or know aspiring writers and haven’t checked out Neil Gaimen’s Masterclass and love to write and learn I can’t recommend it more.
It’s easier to resonate with main characters that are written as not perfect because we ourselves know we aren’t perfect.
We want a hero that is good for the most part but “breaks the rules” sometimes to get the bad guys in the end. Or breaks the rules to help out others.
Audiences are tired of being hurt by “the rules” and seeing their loved ones hurt by the system so when the protagonist helps someone this way it makes the audience see them as gray and not “uptight.” (None of this is meant to be real-life advice, this is just creative writing ideas for fictional stories.)
For example: Venom, Daredevil, Vampires, Harry Potter, etc.
There are many now that could be named and a plethora to draw inspiration from.
And you might as well because right now audiences are loving it.
And why not? Many are bored with the same old knight in shining armor stories and are looking for entertaining stories outside of that box.
So you might as well write your protagonist in gray and make your antagonist gray as well.
Why not write stories where it is hard to tell who is the “bad guy?” And who is the “good guy?”
Keep your audience guessing all the way through in order to create great curiosity and suspense as to what might happen next.
Write your protagonist doing something Morally questionable when we first meet them.
This could be the case or later on, you could show that what they were doing was totally fine, it just looked questionable the way you wrote it.
Play around with this idea. The sky’s the limit.
Have your protagonist break the law to catch some bad guys. Have them blackmail someone, or even kill someone or injure them in order to make them talk.
How to Write your Antagonist Grayer
Make your antagonist a Doctor, or a person of good reputation. Someone that volunteers a lot, that is very charming and that everyone likes.
Show their home life to be nice and kind and polite. Make their wife or husband adore them and make them very kind to their children.
And then several chapters in surprise the audience with some heinous act they are committing.
Do your best to paint the antagonist in the best light before revealing that they are the antagonist.
Another way to write your antagonist gray is to write them a victim. They could be a victim of the home they’ve been raised in or a victim of society be it a community school.
Show in-depth their suffering before they snap and do something truly evil and your audience will feel conflicted about whether they are indeed evil or not, making them ultimately gray in your audience’s eyes.
To make your antagonist grayer find ways to make your audience root for them to win or succeed in their mission or goal.
Why Not Write Two Characters that are Equally Good and Evil?
Why not make your protagonist and antagonist equally good and evil and keep your audience guessing?
Make them run into each other and in order for one to solve their problem, the other cannot and choose which one you want to succeed and what the consequences will be for the other.
In order for one to win the other must lose, and keep the stakes high.
Or you can make it that in the end they team up and are able to accomplish both of their goals, but in order to do so something of consequence must happen. Either they are both evil or both good. Or the “good” one could help the “evil” one and in the end, this leaves the audience feeling the curiosity of which character was bad or good.
There are many possibilities with this scenario and it’s not done often.
Let us know how it goes!
Did this post inspire you on a story idea?
Did you agree or disagree with the ideas in this post?
5 Tips For Being a Better Storyteller that Hollywood No Longer Cares About (Apparently)
To be honest, in the recent making of movies and books there has been a push toward moving away from good dynamic storytelling to “trying to be different” and being “politically correct.” To have an agenda beyond telling an amazing story to viewers and readers.
What happened to the good ole’ days when you wrote or told a story so that the audience enjoyed it and it was good?
What happened to just being a good storyteller?
It would be one thing if they added in a few beliefs that add to the story or make it better, but when they blatantly add this type of propaganda and material at the expense of the story being told well and executed well it can be quite disappointing.
And let me state very clearly, I have absolutely no problem with beliefs and moral being in stories, BUT only if it makes sense and makes the story better. The problem I’m seeing heavily these days is when the writer cares more about their worldview and message than the story itself. This makes for poor writing and poor storytelling.
If you are going to be a storyteller and in the storytelling business, be it movies, TV, Books, etc. You should really take a hard look at why you are telling a story and if you like it yourself.
One of the keys to knowing you are headed in the right direction is to like what you are creating so much that it makes you curious to see where it will end up and you enjoy people reading or watching it.
If you are telling a story and you yourself aren’t entertained by it, why would anyone else be and we as creators that want to excel should be asking ourselves, “will anyone else enjoy this?”
It’s a hard question, to be honest with ourselves, but if we are going to make stories that readers enjoy we have to put ourselves in their shoes.
Is my story compelling?
Does it have a good flow?
How does the ending make my readers feel? Resolved and appreciative or unresolved?
If we aspire to be great storytellers we must appreciate and take note of the fact that our readers are “investing” their time to read what we write.
They take a “chance” on us of whether or not at the end of the time they have given to us, will they feel like it was worth their time?
Asking yourself good questions like this on a regular basis as a writer can help keep you on the right track for why you are a storyteller at all and how you can make the future of storytelling excellent compared to where it has ended up today with certain over-glorified “critics?”
In a world with story saturation, too many writers just trying to be different, and not keeping their main priority on telling a compelling story, can we do better?
I think yes, we can! 🙂
All that to say, you can use certain storytelling tricks that have been around for ages but have been neglected as of late in Hollywood and other major storytelling productions.
These tips and tricks are not so “secret” as one might think, but if you didn’t know them from studying the art and foundations of storytelling they might appear new to you.
So let’s dive in!
Keep these in mind the next time you are writing and you will do yourself and your readers a huge service:
Plot Must Move Characters And Characters Must move Plot
Create Good Plot Questions but Leave None Unanswered
Great Stories Have Characters That Change Respectively With Time And Experiences
A Boring Story Shouldn’t Be Written As An Excuse To Write One Exciting Scene
A “Secret” Message Behind The Story Shouldn’t Dictate Or Override The Direction the Story Takes
# 1 Plot Must Move Characters And Characters Must Move Plot
In reality, we have coined a little phrase. You may have heard it in a science class before. It is “cause and effect.”
To be a great storyteller we must think of cause and effect when writing.
In a great story, the author has done an amazing job of using cause and effect between characters and plot in such a way that you as the consumer didn’t think much about it. You just accepted it because well IT MADE SENSE.
This is huge in good storytelling. If what’s happening in your plot doesn’t motivate your characters or your characters don’t motivate the plot in a natural cause and effect sort of way, you will have many readers stopping mid-sentence questioning why or how something important happened in your story instead of accepting it without question.
Here’s a good example of using cause and effect.
For example: Polly loves chocolate chip cookies, but Polly’s mom said “No sweets on Tuesdays.”
So it came to pass that on one Tuesday afternoon poor Polly waited till mommy dearest went to the grocery store. On her way out, mommy said, “Remember, no cookies today Polly, so stay away from the cookie jar.”
Polly said “Yes, mommy dearest!” and out the door, mommy went.
Polly watched through the window as mommy pulled out of the driveway and down the street until she was completely out of sight.
The coast was clear, Polly sprinted to the cookie jar and looked inside. The Chocolate Chip cookies looked more golden brown and more crispy than normal. Polly loved when they were more crispy with a little bit of chewy in the middle.
Something inside Polly told her that she should listen to mommy and she gave her word that she wouldn’t eat them, after all, it reasoned we can have them guilt free tomorrow. That’s not so long to wait, is it?
Something else inside Polly pulled and tugged relentlessly without words the urge to eat them all in one sitting!
Polly listened to the latter and she reached for the lid and lifted it.
Just then she heard a terrifying growl behind her!
She dropped the lid and turned around to see a terrifying giant hairy monster towering above her.
“Get away from the cookie jar!” it roared.
Polly screamed and ran into the other room.
Now at this point, if I’ve done a good job of using the plot to motivate the character and the character to motivate the plot, a good cause and effect relationship if you will, then you won’t be questioning the plot or Polly’s actions based on what you know and are learning about her.
If I’ve done a really good job as a storyteller, then you might even be curious about what’s going to happen to poor Polly next.
If a writer is doing their job well than readers will almost always be wondering, “what happens next?”
This silly little story will hopefully help you see how you can make your characters move and motivate the plot and how your plot can motivate them.
By saying that Polly loves chocolate chip cookies we give the audience motive as to why Polly would have an internal battle about taking the cookies when she knows she shouldn’t.
This also takes liberty to assume that most readers understand the conflict of knowing they should obey parents and authority figures but also knowing the inner struggle of wanting to do something their authority has told them they can’t do (I didn’t explain that in the story because it is what we call an “assumed law” or “natural law.”)
As far as plot goes we set it up that the plot is Polly isn’t allowed to have her favorite treats on Tuesdays. By declaring that the protagonist loves something but can’t have it sets up a problem for the protagonist that makes the reader intrigued as to how they will resolve that problem. So we used the plot to motivate Polly to lie and then disobey and we used Polly to carry the plot along from her first problem to her second even bigger problem (the big hairy monster appearing behind her.)
If you’re doing your job well as a storyteller you will find unique and clever ways to use what you reveal to readers about the plot and about the characters to affect each other in a delightful give and take, cause and effect game.
This game goes back and forth until you decide it’s time to resolve all the big questions and problems that lead to a resolution. Also use the plot to reveal more about your character and use your character to reveal more plot points, major and minor.
# 2 Create Good Plot Questions but Leave None UnansweredStoryteller
A personal pet peeve of mine in stories I watch or read is loose ends or unanswered questions. Actually both my wife and I will sit and talk about a show after we watch it and talk about whether there were holes in the plot.
Sometimes the storytellers bring up these really great questions that pique your curiosity and then they do absolutely nothing with it. This is a HUGE letdown. I can’t tell you how many times my wife and I have watched what seemed like it was going to be a great show only to be let down by unanswered questions and plot holes.
Either they switched writers in the middle or the writer was trying to get away with something by making you curious to get your attention but then being too lazy to really have a good answer for that question. <—don’t do this to your readers.
Creating curiosity for your readers is a great service to them and a tool for making your writing more interesting, but only if you are going to give them the joy of answering the question you made at some point in the story.
As a storyteller, it is like making a promise to a friend. Any time you purposely create a question for your audience you are making a silent promise to them that you are going to answer that question later on. They are counting on it.
If you create a question with no intent to answer it just to keep them reading you are cheating your audience and they will lose interest in your work because there is no pay off in the investment that they have made by buying it and reading it.
Creating Curiosity in your Story and Why
Everything in your story must move the plot or the characters forward. If you create a question that leads your readers forward your answer to that question also needs to push the plot forward, help create character depth, and be enjoyable.
If you are going to create curiosity in your reader, make sure the payoff is good and clever. Give them what they are looking for, THE ANSWERS to their curiosity 🙂
# 3 Great Stories Have Characters That Change Respectively With Time And Experiences
This one is more of a personal opinion than writing code, but if you want to make your characters more realistic and more interesting, they are going to develop and change slightly as your time with them goes. Not all of them should change. Some should be static and not change, but some should also change with time and experience.
There are many factors that come into play with character change.
How much time are we spending with the character?
What type of trauma are they going through?
How old are they and what have they gone through in their past?
How do other characters react to their change?
Is it dramatic or subtle?
These are just a few important factors but there are definitely more.
Unless your character is very old and we are only with them a day or two they should change in some ways as we go because real people change as they live.
Some things about them don’t change and some things do.
Is it a growing-up story?
Do they cut their hair and start wearing make-up?
Is it more dior?
Do they start drinking and smoking heavily?
It is a complicated task but worth thinking about and including in your writing as an up and coming storyteller.
For example, in Lord of the Rings. Gandalf does not change much and this is appropriate for his character, but Frodo and Samwise do go through a deep maturing and change.
# 4 A Boring Story Shouldn’t Be Written As An Excuse To Write One Exciting Scene or Idea
This seems like a no brainer, but it should be said. A good story isn’t made from a motive of putting certain ideas into it. In recent films and writing you can tell that a good story isn’t always the motive of why something shows up in a story, sometimes the writer wants to share a political message or write a pretty looking scene. Things like this should not be motivations for writing a story or adding them in.
And all annoying political messages aside, some writers want to write about an amazing battle or a dramatic conversation, or an intergalactic space race. By all means, write what you want to, but we should watch out for writing entire novels around wanting to write out one battle.
There is nothing wrong with writing neat ideas that come up, but some of these ideas should go through a writing process.
They should be written as a short story first so that way you can enjoy writing and write what you want and get it out on the page, but give it time to marinate and look to expand it through a process that makes sense. Be wary of looking to write a big long book, just to make one specific scene come to life. You might find that the rest of the book is a letdown.
And at the same time, don’t be afraid to start with an idea and see where it ends up.
There are always two sides to a coin. I know for a fact that many wonderful stories started with a small idea and grew from that so definitely write any ideas you have down. I don’t mean not to write your ideas down and create many short stories along the way.
What I mean here is if you are going to create a beautiful scene or share a message or create an amazing battle don’t be lazy about making the story the best it can be and putting it in seamlessly and cleverly.
Be a storyteller, not just a writer.
In my opinion, I think that great stories should be written from the motive of writing an amazing story. That’s usually when the story turns out good. It is that simple.
It used to be that companies had to make good stories to be seen and heard. Now companies are so huge that they continue to make content with other motives.
I would love to see new writers and storytellers rise up that are interested in telling a story because it’s good and enjoyable and they want to serve their audience.
# 5 A “Secret” Message Behind The Story Shouldn’t Dictate The Direction the Story Goes
Some would say that the meaning behind your story is more important than the story itself. I would disagree.
That would mean that adding a scene or changing the ending to send the message instead of creating a well-made story is more important.
That is a horrible idea. Have you ever been reading an amazing story only to be let down by the ending and realize that the whole point was some political world message?
Disappointing isn’t it?
I mean think about it from a reader’s point of view. When you go into the book store and start browsing, what are you thinking?
“I’m looking for an enjoyable read. Something that will entertain me in the genre that is my favorite. I would love to find something that’s so good that I can’t wait to tell my friends and family about it.”
When have you ever walked into the romance section thinking, “I hope I find a romance with a secret message hidden in it about being respectful to the President no matter whether I agree with them or not?”
No, no one has ever looked for that. If someone is entertained by politics they look for books on politics and so on.
So be a better writer than these “secret message” writers that trick their readers into reading their message when really the reader is looking to be entertained.
If you are going to put an important message into your story, be sure that it makes sense and makes the story better. Make sure that it adds to the story and doesn’t destroy it in the end.
What are your thoughts about amazing storytelling?
Do you agree or disagree that Hollywood cares more about a message than telling a good story?
What is a tip you would add to tell better stories?
What advice would you give other storytellers?
Do you think the storytellers of Hollywood are doing a good job?
What is your favorite genre as a storyteller? Do you feel like that genre is being treated fairly by the storytellers that are influential right now?
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Do You Want Your Story Characters To Be Original? Consider These 5 Traits.
Do you want your story characters to be original, not boring, and also likable?
What are you willing to do to help your story characters to be original?
What have you done to help your story characters to be original?
Do you have ideas for how to make your story characters to be original?
Then there are some things you’ll want to consider while you are writing your characters. Unique and original characters in our writing don’t just happen by mistake or accident. It takes time, planning, and clever storyboarding to really make our readers dig in.
It is surprising how many beginning authors leave these simple writing tricks out and don’t consider them. Not well known or famous or well-practiced authors. Time tested and practiced authors know that in order to make characters interesting there are certain human traits to consider and add but in a very strategic and specific manner.
These aren’t just tricks of the trade, they are important pieces of every character’s story and every short story or novel writer at least needs to consider them.
These are not listed in an order of importance, just listed in a way that you can see them and use them for your benefit in any of your writing to make your story characters to be original.
5 Things to consider when writing to get your story characters to be original :
If you want your story characters to be original, traits that make your character odd to any “normal” person are very fun to think about. Anything that makes them feel more and more human and less like some strange creature from a perfect place is ideal. You don’t have to go overboard with this. Just think of a few unique traits that’ll make your character stand out among your other characters. Giving them each different personality can make your story characters to be original.
What are some easy ways to show off these Character Oddities?
Talking style:
How does your character talk? The way each character in your story talks is a big deal for how your readers will see and interpret how they act on a normal daily basis.
For this, the best thing to do is to think about people you know in your immediate sphere and use the way they talk to help make your characters seem more real to life. Use their speech patterns and also let your readers know if they have an accent or not. Do they slur? Do they have a funny shaped mouth that makes words sound different? Write that stuff in there. Let the reader know if they say the word “going” funny or normal. Do they “going,” “goin,” or “gon?” Let your reader know.
Do they use distinct hand motions when they are talking? Do they shift back and forth? What are their eyes doing? Do they look around or make direct eye contact? All these traits make a character more believable and more relatable.
Which brings us to the next point. What is their body language saying?
Body Language:
To do body language well and to your advantage, you might have to do some research just to make it really good.
Do they cross their arms a lot? Do they have a hard time standing still? Do they fidget? What do they fidget with? Do they bite their nails? Do they cross their legs? When they think do they lookup? Do they look down?
For body language, think about your own body language and what you do when you’re feeling a certain way. Also, go to a public place and watch peoples’ body language and what people do naturally when they aren’t thinking with their arms and legs and heads and eyes and eyebrows. The more detailed you can be, the more fun you can make the character by making them come to life in your reader’s imagination. Don’t take 5 paragraphs to explain mannerisms just add a little here and a little there and you will really make your character distinct and your readers will naturally come to know them the way you do.
If we want our story characters to be original we should make sure they have some defining imperfections.
Even though we are scared by nature to write imperfections into our characters, this is actually what makes them human. Readers can’t resonate with a character if they never see how they are indeed imperfect in some way. It’s just unbelievable if they are too perfect. It makes the reader disinterested if the character has no problems. It’s not real to life and it can become boring.
It makes sense that we want everyone to like our characters and we’re afraid if they don’t that they won’t like our story, but that’s actually just the opposite.
A good way to get over this fear is to realize that people don’t have to like your characters like they like people in real life. It’s actually the opposite. Depending on who the reader is they may your secondary character more than your main or your villain more than your hero, but as long as the story is good they will keep reading. Obviously there is more to it than just that, but just don’t worry if they don’t want to be “best friends” with your main character. That’s not the point of a good story.
Things that make for good imperfections can be psychological problems. ADD, ADHD, Schizophrenia, trauma, etc. Whether or not the character has a psychological problem can be interesting for many reasons. WARNING: if you choose one of these, do your homework. Don’t just guess or watch a movie. If you get something wrong, you’ll quickly lose readers. Know what the disorder is really like in real life and write appropriately.
You’ll also want to add Personality imperfections. Are they a horrible listener? Do they lie a lot? Do they brag too much? Use things you know to be common problems with people to help you write the character’s personality.
What problems do they face physically? Are they overweight? A smoker? An Addict? Do they have one hand? Are they blind? Deaf? Out of shape? How does this affect what they are trying to accomplish? Are they handicapped in any way? Is there any way they can use this to their advantage?
Have you read a story where the protagonist is a paraplegic? That could make for interesting writing since it doesn’t happen often.
If we want our story characters to be original we should give them unique “likes.”
These are not massively important to the plot, but you can use them in clever ways.
Say your character likes to ice skate. Have her and friends go ice skating one night and while they are there some boys holler at them and treat them disrespectfully. They think nothing of it, but later on, in the story, their friend goes missing and you find out the last person she was with was one of those boys from the ice skating rink.
You can also use likes to show character traits. Is your character OCD about working out? Do they run everyday?
Do they have hobbies like sewing? Did they rip their jeans while running away from gang members? Were they able to sit down and sew them together themselves?
Do they have certain clothing they like to wear? Can you tie in their clothing choices to add to their character traits? Do they dress sloppy and comfortable? Or do they want to appear professional all the time so much so that they wouldn’t even consider wearing sweats out of the house?
Can you use future goals they have to resonate with your audience? Is your character a detective that’s really good at their job but dreams about retirement?
Is your character a slob that dreams about cleaning up their life, but always says tomorrow?
Very similar to “likes” characters have to have “dislikes.”
Do they not like onions? Do they get mad in traffic? Do they hate waiting in lines? What type of pizza toppings do they not like?
Whining, complaining, and getting mad are great ways to help your reader get sucked in and even chuckle at the simple life things that frustrate us as humans every day.
Your reader will either be like “What?! How can you not like pepperoni?” Or they’ll be like “yeah traffic is the worst. It makes me so mad too.”
Use these to make your characters more realistic, but don’t take a ton of time detailing them.
Think of likes and dislikes as icing on the cake you’re presenting. They mostly make it look pretty, but it’s not the cake.
And definitely try to use some clever ways to tie it to the plot.
Choices are easier ways to show character traits that directly or indirectly affect the plot and move things along.
For instance, let’s say we have a character named Gabriella. Gabriella is a very time-sensitive person. She is always calculated and never late. She takes the Southbound highway every day, but unlike her coworkers, she takes exit 21 because she has mapped out the fastest route which takes her through downtown. The rest of her coworkers that take the same highway always just stay on and take exit 22 because it’s easier but it’s 2 minutes slower.
Gabriella is more concerned about the extra 2 minutes she’d be “wasting on the highway” as she would put it.
On a normal day in broad daylight, Gabriella was ripped out her car going through downtown at 7:45 am on her way to work off of exit 21. No one has heard from her since and it’s been at least 2 days.
Now, from this example above you can see that Gabriella has an underlining temperament of not wasting any time, especially not for convenience. She’d rather drive through downtown to save 2 minutes than “lose” 2 minutes and stay on the highway. You can make a character like Gabriella make many choices based on time efficiency in an example like this, but the example shows how we’ve displayed a key part of her character, how it affects her choices, and how her choices then affect the plot.
I think the choices a character makes and why are some of the easiest writing tips to show character traits and tie them into the plot seamlessly and without much effort.
One of the best ways to develop your characters and reveal who they REALLY are deep down to your readers is to put them into specific situations and then allow your readers to see who they are without just telling them boringly.
Case and point: Instead of saying he is mean and arrogant, you write that “he yelled at his sister for leaving the roast in too long and he bragged to everyone, he got the chance to, about making varsity this year and took up the whole conversation talking about his football throw and how far and accurate he could throw. He wasn’t interested in hearing anything about them at all. In fact, any time they would try to chime in, he would interrupt them or zone out until he could say something else about himself.”
By writing a scene and dialogue that shows who your character is, you never have to actually talk about their personality at all.
Your readers will be able to see it. Your readers will love you for this and they won’t even know you’re doing it. It gets amusing figuring out how to write their actions or inactions into scenes that show what you are desiring to tell.
Just a Tip before getting started: Take a few minutes, sit down, and write out specifically what you want to reveal about your character through these scenes. For example: arrogant, funny, secretive, aloof, gruff. You can use these scenes on your protagonist, antagonist, secondary characters, villains, pedestrians, temporary characters, any character you can think of.
Now on with it.
# 1 Write The Action Scene
The action scene is an easy setup and an easy way to reveal character quickly.
The key secret to a well set up action scene that reveals character is putting the character against a problem where they must take action or decide not to take action but either way their action or inaction reveals who they are deep down as a character.
Important note: It’s not only the action they take that defines to the reader what their true nature is as a character.
It’s also the actions they don’t take.
Not only that, but you can also reveal character by how they make the decision as you write.
Are they meticulous and plan everything out?
Or are they quick to action and don’t plan anything out?
Does this lead to further problems by taking too long to plan things out?
Or by acting to rashly to quickly do they create self-destructive problems?
Does the character learn as they go and approach problems differently based on past events you took them through?
Or do they keep making the same mistakes?
Are they cowardly and take no action at all by running or leaving the problem for others to solve?
Writing task: Take a few minutes to develop a problem and write out how the character works their way through the problem or problems and be sure to write character traits you want to portray to your reader by showing how the character would or wouldn’t take action.
# 2 Write The 1-2-3 Punch Scene
The 1-2-3 Punch scene is called “the 1-2-3 Punch Scene,” because it happens REAL fast. If you blink you might miss it. (So don’t blink…Okay, do blink)
Your reader won’t know that you’ve done it but all within one paragraph usually you’ll have divulged very specific character traits that run down through your character’s core in a matter of a minute or two.
Let’s use the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy” as an example, and we’ll use Ronin the antagonist.
It happens really fast but in the first few moments, we see Ronin as he is going through ritualistic ceremonies.
You can tell they happen daily.
In an instant, we see that he is dedicated, determined, no-nonsense, and disciplined down to his core. And then immediately following we see him harshly judge a man and execute him with his own hammer. We watch his victim’s blood flow into his bathing chamber.
We see his cruelty and how he judges an individual based on his ancestor’s actions without any thought to see how the person is individual.
We see that he’s determined, extremely cruel, and prone to violence, and desires genocide. In a matter of minutes, we know this character.We know that he is cruel and that he will stop at nothing to carry out his cause of vengeance.
This is, in essence, the 1-2-3 Punch. In as quick as a paragraph you can have your character carry out 1-2 or 3 quick actions that display who that character is down to their core and it all happens as quick as a punch and your audience suddenly has a large sense of who that character is. To execute this type of scene well you need to decide a couple of character traits you want your character to have.
Let’s make an example: I have a Protagonist named Jim. I want to portray that Jim is kind, caring, and charitable.
Let’s say Jim’s widowed Aunt stays with him and his son.
She comes home one day and realizes she forgot the butter. Jim hears her exclaim her disappointment and he quickly jumps up and says “Don’t worry about it Auntie, I’ll run out and get your butter for you so that you don’t have to run back in town.” He says it with a big smile of course and a great attitude about the whole thing whistling as he’s off on his way to the store.
While waiting in line to buy the butter the person in front of him is a dollar or two short. Jim quickly says “Oh, let me get that for you” and smiles at the distraught stranger while digging in his pocket for two dollars.
In a short paragraph, we have seen that Jim is kind, caring, and charitable. We didn’t have to SAY “Jim is kind, caring, and charitable.” We used a scene to let the reader see it for themselves.
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# 3 Write The Vulnerability Scene
Have you ever been reading a short story or novel and you start to notice that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the main character or their antagonist?
If you notice, you’ll see that you start to lose interest and resonate less and less with the “perfect” character. This is because, in real life, we know there no such thing as a perfect person. And if their life was perfect, it would be boring. This is why it’s important to have the Vulnerability Scene.
This scene is exactly how it sounds. You have to make your character a little vulnerable in some way. You can go as far as you want with it, but you have to show that the character isn’t perfect and that they have consequences just like people in the real world. Most often it doesn’t have to be some big unheard-of thing. In actuality, this can work best if it is some quick notice of something that could be considered “normal” or small.
For example: Our Sheriff drinks most nights when he’s off duty (and sometimes on duty.) The mailman sometimes reads our letters before delivering them. The DMV worker has an expired license but drives anyway. It could be anything and it could be small or a big deal, but if your characters are going to be believable you have to show some vulnerability so that readers can relate to them a little.
Another way to write a scene that shows who the character is is to put your character through loss. The loss doesn’t have to be a big deal to you, but whatever it is that they lost, it MUST be a big deal to them. The more strange the loss is and how much it hurts the character you write emotionally the more readers can see what is actually important to the character and see what they are like as you write.
If you write your character losing a family member and is only a little sad, but they lose an animal and sob for weeks we can see what is important to this person. Another good example you can write would be a character losing their job and not caring, but their car gets a scratch on it and you write them going into an unforeseeable rage. As we see what the character doesn’t care about and what they care most about in their heart we can see their heart and the core beliefs of the character as we write.
Like I said the loss doesn’t have to always be something that most people would see as a big deal. It could be something you write that you don’t consider to be a big deal, but the fact that it is a big deal to them helps the reader see more and more of who this person is at their core self.
On the flip side, you can use the BIG loss scene in reverse. Write them through a scenario where they experience a loss that most of society would consider a big deal but the fact that you write the character doesn’t, shows who they are as a person and a key part of their character and maybe even an important part of your plot. Make them lose a father, mother, brother, or sister and make them not care and your readers will be lead to curiosity why they don’t care.
Play with the big loss scenario and use it both ways to show what is and isn’t important to your character.
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Writing Tips that you MUST Use From the Writers of Stranger Things!
If you love writing and Stranger Things then you will love reading this post.
No Spoilers! Don’t worry, but by now you’ve DEFINITELY binged the entire thing 😉
What writing tips can we gather from the screenwriter’s of Stranger Things without giving any spoilers away?
They bend Time to their will.
They use Conflict to keep your Brain Hooked.
They Keep You Guessing with the Mysteries of the Universe.
Did you Notice How the Dialogue made you Feel?
They Manipulate you with Character Relationships.
They Make You Hate the Right People and Love the Wrong People.
They Don’t Promise That Characters You Love Will Survive.
Every year, I for one look forward to what the writers of Stranger Things are going to give to me.
Honestly, this year I was a bit disappointed that they decided to wait till summer to give us another nail-biting story, but hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait.
While I watch things I look for writing tips and tricks. Hopefully, you get writing inspiration from these and are able to make great use of them in your own writing!
#1. They BEND TIME to Their Will.
Have you ever noticed that in suspenseful stories the writer uses time to their benefit?
Stranger Things is no different.
I took a Class from Dan Brown and in that class, he revealed a writing technique for suspense that is genius and that I found so helpful!
Bend time to your will.
Stranger Things, Dan Brown, and other great suspense writers all use this same writing technique in one way or another to help their writing be more suspenseful.
How do we as writers bend time to our will and use it to keep our readers at the edge of their seats turning page after page after page without thinking about it????
We create a “ticking time bomb.”
This can be a literal time bomb, but that’s not what we mean here.
You can and need to create a time sensitive event that if the main protagonist doesn’t accomplish in time then “THE WORLD WILL END!”
Haha! The world ending doesn’t always have to be the big bad ending if they don’t make it in time.
It could be a loved one dying.
It could be a world ending. (usually the case in Stranger Things and Marvel)
The main character dies.
The town dies.
Half the Universe disappears 😉 Thanks, Thanos…
The house explodes.
Mom and Dad find out the kids are up to no good if they don’t hide the mess in time.
A monster is hunting them.
An alien race is chasing them.
I think you get the idea.
It could be a massive consequence or a “smaller” consequence depending on how old your audience is and how big you want to make the stakes of this one dire event, but it is up to you how you want to use this tool and how much you want to use it.
You can make it one big thing that the protagonists are trying to accomplish the entire journey or a series of little time-sensitive events along the journey to one big one. Build up and misdirection are always good tools.
Either way, if you want to turn up the heat this summer with extra suspense in your writing you need to create time-sensitive events that if not done something about…BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!
2 things to keep in mind:
It has to be believable. Don’t go overboard.
Don’t use it so much that the reader gets sick of this technique without thinking about it. (He keeps defeating the bad guy, but then a bigger worse bad guy comes along too quickly, and oh look, he wants to blow up the world too…boring.)
#2 They Use CONFLICT to Keep Your Brain Hooked.
The writers of Stranger Things use conflict to keep you hooked.
As a writer of stories when you create a conflict your readers become curious about how the conflict will be resolved.
Conflict doesn’t work all by itself. You have to care about the characters in order to care about the conflict they face and whether or not it will be resolved.
The writers of Stranger Things know that you care about the characters and they use the conflict they put the children into to keep your brain hooked from start to finish. They also do a great job of first making us like the kids and characters they create before they create problems and danger for them to go through.
Create characters and help your readers like them. Make them like them for many reasons. Make them vulnerable, cute, admirable, funny, misunderstood, or likable and then create danger for them and some sort of conflict and your readers will be instantly hooked and keep reading out of curiosity as to how they’ll make it out alive.
#3 They Keep You Guessing with the Mysteries of the Universe.
The writers of Stranger Things have done an amazing job of creating their own universe.
It carries original ideas and original monsters. That leaves us curious for more. Such questions boil over in our minds. What are the demi dogs? Why do they hunt people? What is the underground really? What is the Mind Flare and what does it want? Are there creatures more powerful than the Mind Flare?
By creating this universe and creating it well they have given us all kinds of mysteries to keep us guessing and intrigued.
If you can create curiosity and intrigue for your readers than you can create something interesting for them. When you create something that keeps your readers guessing in a good way (not because they are confused) you have done them a service of keeping them entertained and intrigued.
The writers of Stranger Things do this time and time again, season after season by slowly introducing more characters, more creatures, and more problems.
Make your universe full of intrigue and wonder, and make sure, if you create a question for your characters to solve make sure that you answer it at some point. Give them a question and then give them resolution. By doing this the right way, you keep them interested and intrigued and then satisfied when you answer the question for them.
Create a good universe and create good questions and problems for your characters and you’ll be taking tips from the writers of Stranger Things.
#4 Did You Notice How The Dialogue Made You Feel?
Have you ever analyzed the dialogue in Stranger Things?
The writers do an AMAZING job of making you feel certain emotions they want you to feel through the dialogue.
When the boys are playing D&D you feel like a little kid again by what they say, how they say it, and the emotions they are feeling while they talk and play.
Dialogue planned well carries the story along, but mostly reveals to you who the characters are. When you see who they are through how they act and talk you feel certain things about them whether you relate or not.
Notice the dialogue between Nancy and her couple of relationships. Depending on where they are at with their relationship the dialogue changes and as it changes we feel differently about them, their relationships and ourselves. We can feel happy for them, mad at them, sad, jealous, angry, worried, concerned. The dialogue between Nancy and her relationships makes us feel this way depending on where we are at in our relationships and life.
To take these Stranger Things writing tips to the pen and paper, learn how to use dialogue the way they do.
Use dialogue to:
Reveal character
Show character vulnerability
Show character growth
Show character immaturity/ maturity
Reveal character relations to other characters
Carry the story along
Make sure you know what types of emotions your readers will be feeling through your dialogue.
That brings us to the next Stranger Things writing tip.
#5 They Manipulate You With Character Relationships.
Take it from the writers of Stranger Things, if you have the ability to write relationship conflicts into your stories, DO IT.
We as readers and watchers eat up relationship intrigue and conflict. We are relational creatures so any type of relational conflict we can watch and be a part of is extremely fascinating to us.
Think about how you feel when the kids are getting into arguments. You feel bad, you don’t want them to fight or dislike each other. If you care about their friendship you want to see it resolved. Or at least you want to see if it resolves at all.
Do the same thing with your stories.
Think about your different characters and how you can create bonds in their relationships and how you can create conflict in their relationships.
Whatever you do, don’t make everything rainbows and roses all the time. It’s not real life and it’s not really interesting either.
The writers of Stranger Things know how to put our heartstrings by creating character relationships and by creating conflict between them.
#6 They Make You Hate the Right People and Love the Wrong People.
Think about your characters in your stories. Do you make them likable? How? Do you make them disposable?
Think about ways you can make your characters likable and hateable. Use the traits and dialogues you can think of to give your readers twists and turns with the characters you create.
Start off making your villains likable and don’t tell them it’s a villain. Give them a twist and inner turmoil when they realize the charming cute guy they like is a sinister evil man up to no good. Likewise, you can make your good characters do stupid things that make them despicable at first until they grow up a little.
Take it from the writers of Stranger Things, keep your readers guessing and interested by not revealing everything at first but making them read to get the answers.
#7 They Don’t Promise That Characters You Love Will Survive.
It’s hard to do and it can be hard on your audience, but it’s true to life. If all your characters always survived everything with no consequences eventually your readers will lose interest because they know nothing bad will happen to the characters in your stories.
Pick characters that you will eventually kill and do what you can to make their deaths worth it.
Make a death worth it by either killing a character they love and will miss or by killing a character they hate.
Don’t just kill random characters they have no emotional feelings towards.
The writers of Stranger Things have shown us from the start that characters we like might not make it to the end of the story.
They’ve done this many times with both characters we love and characters we love to hate. You may think that by killing off a character we like that you will lose the audience. This is true in fewer cases than you might think. Most times the audience feels the sadness but is even more curious to see how things turn out because it’s not easy to guess anymore. When death is a possible scenario, no character is safe. That means more curiosity and intrigue for your readers.
Do your readers and viewers a service and include these Stranger Things writing tips into your stories.
What did you notice that you can add to your writing from Stranger Things?
Did you binge watch it the 3rd season? How many days did it take you? I watched it in 3 days.
Have you gotten creative writing tips from other shows?
What would you recommend watching to get great writing tips?
You might be wondering, “Why aren’t my emails getting opened and read?”
Hopefully, with this list, you will get better open rates and more people reading and clicking your emails in no time.
You can’t just send your list anything.
You have to know your list and know their problems so you can send them something they are interested in reading.
If you are trying to tell your list about great kitchen products, don’t just tell them about how great the item is.
Make sure to say what PROBLEMS the item solves.
Things to think about when creating emails that will get open and read:
Put your best foot forward.
Who are you writing to?
What will make them open the email?
Tell me about my problem, not your product
Make your text easy to skim through
#1 Put Your Best Foot Forward
First impressions are extremely powerful.
In all aspects of life if you give a bad first impression it is unlikely the person will give you a second chance.
This is escalated with email. If you land in their inbox with junky info or annoying them…unsubscribe, delete, done, bye.
The same goes for a good first impression.
If you give a great first impression, but mess up later on down the road, they are likely to give you a 2nd and maybe even a third or fourth chance before they hit the DREADED unsubscribe!
Use this knowledge to your advantage.
When you have 1st-time subscribers, make sure to welcome them and give them something SO AMAZING that they’ll be looking forward to your next email with excitement.
Give them a reason to want to open every email and keep you in their inbox for years to come. But the first opened email is one of the most important.
If you want your list to look forward to seeing your emails in their inbox then you need to know them.
What are their doubts, worries, and fears?
Go to forums, FaceBook groups, and places like Amazon reviews to see what your audience has to say and think about products like yours and the problems they are facing right now.
Try to notice patterns in what they say and do your best to use wording and phrasing the same way the majority does.
This will help you resonate with most of your audience and they will be thinking “It’s like you read my mind!” “You must have the answer to my problems!”
If you can resonate with them, they will likely try your product or listen to you and if you solve their problem the first time, they will very likely come back for more.
#3 What will make more people open the email?
How do you get potential readers to open your emails?
Make sure you are capturing the RIGHT audience. If your lead magnet is drawing in people that care about blogging and you’re trying to tell them about cars, you aren’t going to get many openings.
Focus on your headline. Create email headlines that make people curious and have a promise to make their life better if they open it.
Use stories. As humans, we are obsessed with stories. If you can promise a good story with an open, you are much more likely to get it.
Think about what questions you can answer for them.
VERY IMPORTANT: IF you make a promise to deliver an answer to a problem, MAKE SURE YOU DELIVER. Clickbait will get good openings once, but after that, you are the boy who cried wolf, no one will listen to you.
If you want to get your emails read you need to make sure that you know what your subscribers’ problems are.
Once you know their problems, you can talk about their problem and tell them about the solution to their problem.
If you talk to them about their problem and you are spot on they will read on or skim through to find an answer.
Only highlight the benefits of your product after you’ve covered all their potential problems.
Change your mindset. Right now you are thinking, “how can I get them to buy this product?”
That’s the wrong question.
You should be asking, “What are the problems this product solves for my reader?”
Spend most of your time writing to them about their problemsand then you can tell them about how your item, service, or product solves their problems and they are going to read and be curious.
It is great at this point if you can tell them how the product solved your problems or if you have customer testimonies to talk about how it solved their problems.
If you are able to do this effectively and they don’t seem to be interested, maybe it’s time to upgrade the product or make sure you have captured the right email audience.
#5 Make your email text simple and readable.
This should be obvious, but you’d be surprised how many emails get opened and skipped because the content was too much and too “blocky” for the recipient to even want to try to read, let alone get any enjoyment out of.
Make your email text readable by creating 1 to 2 sentences per paragraph, instead of creating a BIG BLOCK of text.
Which is easier to read?:
I went for a walk. It was nice. I saw a dog and a cat and my next door neighbor. I said hi and they said hi. It was a nice walk on a sunny day. The temperature wasn’t too hot or too cold. While I was walking I saw a snail. The snail said hi, I said hi back. It was clear that he didn’t want to see me, so I quickly walked on. I almost stepped on him, but I didn’t, I’m glad I didn’t as his mother might have sued. I’m glad I didn’t get sued on my morning walk on the nice warm sun shiny day in October.
Or this:
I went for a walk. It was nice. I saw a dog and a cat and my next door neighbor. I said hi and they said hi.
It was a nice walk on a sunny day. The temperature wasn’t too hot or too cold.
While I was walking, I saw a snail. The snail said hi, I said hi back. It was clear that he didn’t want to see me, so I quickly walked on.
I almost stepped on him, but I didn’t, I’m glad I didn’t as his mother might have sued.
I’m glad I didn’t get sued on my morning walk on the nice warm sun shiny day in October.
Use this technique and pla around with it to create emails that are easy on their eyes, easy to skim, and easy to read.
You should make your writing easy to skim and lead them to what you want by using Bold, Italics, underlining and colored text.
By making certain text pop out you can draw their eyes to the main things you want them to read.
Take and use these 5 email marketing tips and get more opens and reads with your emails.
Update: See My Updated Page views, close-ups, and saves at the bottom of the Page! It’s WAY more than 34K!And as Always Thanks for your awesome support!
I just had a Pinterest Pin go Viral with 34K views and 396 saves in 24 hours: Here’s What I Learned
You’re already too late
Promote, promote, promote and promote some more
Some pins are for specific articles and some are not?
What goes viral and why?
The other day I woke up to check my Pinterest and found this:
12.6K views overnight might not sound like much to you, but before this, I had only had pins with 4K or less (and these pins only got that far from ads mind you). So to wake up to this was exciting for me.
And what made it even better for me, this pin was completely organic.
I DID NOT use Pinterest ads to get this pin noticed.
In fact, I had published this pin a week or weeks earlier and forgot about it. I didn’t think this pin was very good, to be honest.
It was very exciting and as the day went on it just kept growing and growing. I couldn’t stop checking my Pinterest and my site to see what was going on and trying to make the best of it.
Before 24 hours was over I had 34K organic views and 396 organic saves of my pin, and it didn’t stop there.
So here are some things I picked up from this event and where it ended up leading.
I hope you can use these insights to make a good Pinterest Marketing Strategy and avoid some mistakes I made!
That’s right. By the time your pin goes viral, you are already too late.
If you haven’t planned for the virality than you missed opportunities to capture emails and send people to the URL you desire.
Things you should consider doing before your pin goes viral to get ready for the traffic:
Make an email capture funnel.
Create an email capture form pop up for the URL attached to the Pin
Create a lead magnet for gathering emails. Capturing emails happens MUCH more effectively if you give visitors something for their email. Create a free piece of content they’ll want and offer it to them for their email.
Make sure you have a good landing page created for capturing emails.
Use a Viral Pin ahead Strategy when creating pins:
Understand that certain pins that carry the same URL as the Pin that went viral will also do well with the virality. These can be referred to as “sibling pins.”
Sibling pins carry the same URL and sometimes boost each other on Pinterest based on how the other “siblings” are doing.
Plan ahead when making pins and linking back to your site which pins and links you want to have more attention when a viral pin occurs.
By planning ahead you can control which pins will carry more traffic to your site and which pages you send people to.
Pins go viral fast and without much notice, so prep for it beforehand so you can make the most of it when it happens.
Promote, promote, promote and promote some more.
When a pin goes viral on Pinterest you will want to make sure to push it out to all your social channels to keep the flow of traffic from it going.
The more fuel you put under the fire the longer it will last and the more the attention will spread further.
You can make ads. You can make ads on Pinterest, Google, and FaceBook.
You can tweet it.
Send it to your FaceBook page.
Mention it in your Facebook groups. (I got some extra following from doing this.) Invite your friends to like it and pin it. Whatever you can think of, make sure to keep the fire going.
Even though the initial burst will make you very excited the reality is that it will boom for about 2 days and then turn into a passive trickle to your site.
Use the momentum to make it reach as far as you can.
Some pins are for specific articles and some are not?
I did what is apparently considered to be a Pinterest no-no.
I started putting my home page as the link to many of my pins.
There was a method to this madness (I’m still not sure yet if it was the right one.)
When I had sent people to my specific pages they would read for 1-3 minutes and then leave. I didn’t like this, but I did notice if I sent visitors to my home page they would check out more of my pages, but this did make my bounce rate go up, so still working out the kinks.
Pinterest traditional wisdom would say you should link your pins to specific articles and optimize from there. I’m not sure what I’ll do specifically yet, but I have changed my pin strategy a little and I’ll try to keep you updated on what’s working for me.
Another interesting insight from this event.
Since some of my pins are not for specific pages, they are quotes and tips and things like that. Pins that are like that share extremely well, BUT they don’t generate as many clicks as pins that lead to articles that make people curious.
Since the pin that went viral was more of a quote pin, even though I got TONS of shares, it didn’t lead to many clicks.
So it should be considered, if you want good clicks from your pins, consider this fact.
I’m not going to change this part of my strategy, I like creating these types of pins, but if you want to get more clicks from your pins, make sure they are pins that make people curious and teach something people want to learn, that way when your pin goes viral it will lead to clicks instead of just shares.
It looks good. The typewriter gives it a good look to go along with my “writing” niche.
It has a touch of humor to it, but nothing very funny. (In other words, it didn’t go viral because it was funny.)
I think the biggest thing is that it lists an older movie that writers can watch and enjoy and also learn some writing lessons from. (It’s an easy way to learn more about writing and doing it in an easy and entertaining way.)
My guess is that most 18-24 year olds haven’t heard of the movie “Finding Forrester.” (Which is the majority of my audience.) Make sure you set up a Pinterest Business account to figure out your audience stats if you have not yet.
I don’t think people saved it because it looks cool or what it says, I think they saved it because they thought “hmmm, I’d like to watch that movie later, but I’ll forget it later. I’ll pin it and then I can just look it up here.”
That’s just my thought with this one.
So what’s the takeaway?Try to make pins that people will want to try later, they are more likely to repin it. When a bunch of people repin it so they can try it later it’ll go viral.
And another key lesson to take away from this is you never know what is going to catch on. I’ve created a lot of pins that I thought were sure to catch on quickly that ended up going nowhere.
This pin I didn’t think would go anywhere and it reached the farthest out of all my pins so far.
So if you love to create, don’t be shy, just put it out there. You never know who’s looking for what you love creating.
IF you want your pins to be more Viral you need to try Tailwind.
Tailwind posts your pins for you and it posts them at optimal viral times for your subject matter.
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What “Detective Pikachu” Can Teach Us About Exciting Effective Writing Prompts: Spoiler Alert!
What’s ahead in exciting effective writing prompts:
Begin your story with a good hook.
Make every second count
Don’t try to catch them all
Keep them guessing
Don’t push the twist
If you haven’t seen Detective Pikachu yet, I recommend it. It was family friendly and one of the best gaming movies made yet.
The writers of the movie did a good job using exciting effective writing prompts in the screenwriting.
How can writing in a movie help with your writing overall?
The simple answer is stories.
Good stories make for great exciting effective writing prompts, blogging, and copywriting.
If you learn how to use storytelling in all of your writing niches you will immediately be a better writer and see better results.
Begin Your Story With a Good Hook
At the very beginning of the movie we see Mewtwo bust out of science facility and shoot energy at a car and explode it.
At this point, we as an audience are waiting with curiosity to see why he did this.
Here’s where good writing comes in.
Instead of revealing anything right then the movie changes scenes and we are left curious to find out what happens.
You can call this is a hook.
If you can add a good hook to your blog post or writing prompt (especially marketing material), this will help your readers stay curious and want to know more about what you are saying.
This will keep them curious and engaged in your writing instead of zoning out while reading your material.
Make Every Second Count in Your Writing Prompt
In the movie, they don’t waste time with meaningless scenes or time to just roll the film.
In the same way, you shouldn’t waste words or sentences that don’t carry your reader to the next sentence of your writing prompt.
Write a sentence and make it count.
If it doesn’t make the reader curious about what is coming after it, consider revising it or cutting it out altogether.
Lead them to your next scene or idea.
Don’t Try To Catch Them All
Something I found humorous and entertaining about the main character of the movie is that he didn’t like pokemon.
People in his society considered him to be an oddball because he didn’t have his own pokemon companion and didn’t bother with trying to catch them all.
In like manner, with your writing prompt, you shouldn’t try to catch every person that could come across your writing or blog.
You should aim for the right people for your niche.
Try to resonate with your specific audience and don’t worry about pleasing everyone.
Just be sure to entertain the right people and your following will grow.
Throw out too many pokeballs and you might just lose followers in the process.
If you enjoy exciting effective Writing Prompts, Storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Detective Pikachu does a good job of keeping you guessing.
You’re not sure if the main bad guy is the father or the son.
There’s even a moment when you think Pikachu may have betrayed his owner.
This is great writing.
If you are able to keep your audience guessing in a good way then you can make your writing prompts much better.
Keep them in suspense. Keep them on their toes. Keep them on the edge of their seats waiting for your big reveal.
BEWARE: when you are writing in a way to create curiosity don’t overdo it.
Any questions you create for your readers you must answer them and deliver on the questions you make.
If you make too many questions and don’t answer enough of them you leave your readers feeling tricked or duped. This is a bad strategy.
They did all that work reading through your material and then never found out what they were looking for.
Don’t to that to them. Just don’t!
Don’t Push the Twist in Your Writing Prompts
A good twist is never forced.
Do your best to make it natural.
In Detective Pikachu, the twist would have been more predictable but at the last minute they tricked you with a Ditto pokemon clone of the son which made you think, “well I guess he really is the bad guy.”
But they kept the Ditto a secret until the big reveal.
That was their big trick and they did a good job keeping it from the audience.
They didn’t tell you there was a Ditto and they didn’t let you know that it could turn into humans and this made for the perfect way to hide the twist and the true villain.
You also need to figure out ways to create a good twist and don’t force it in your writing prompts.
Find new and innovative ways to hide the BIG SECRET that is the key to unlocking your suspenseful BIG REVEAL.
Look for great writing prompts in all the content you see, read, review, and take in every day.
It may be lunch with a friend, or something your child says to you.
Creativity is in abundance all around us, we just have to train ourselves to be looking for it and grab it when it comes.
Be sure to keep an eye out for great material and inspiring ideas whether you are watching a movie or reading a great writing prompt.
Did you get exciting effective writing prompts idea while reading this post?
Have you seen Detective Pikachu, how did you react? How did your kids react?
What movie have you seen lately that made you think of great exciting effective writing prompts?
What exciting effective Writing Prompts can you come up with?
5 Exciting Effective Writing Prompts From the movie “Detective Pikachu”
If you enjoy exciting effective Writing Prompts, here are some Other Post You Might Love:
If you enjoy exciting effective Writing Prompts, Storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy exciting effective Writing Prompts, Storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
How to make money blogging: 11 simple steps to start blogging for money
How to make money blogging:
Through affiliate links
Sponsorships
How to make money blogging through ads
Make money blogging through digital products
Through a membership subscription site
Use your blog to make money through clients
How to make money blogging through reviews
Drive traffic to your site
Choose a blog host
Choose a blog domain name
Choose your blogging platform
1. Make money blogging with affiliate links
Many bloggers make a decent living by using affiliate links on their blog sites.
An affiliate link is a website link in their post that when clicked on and used pays out money.
Affiliate links can pay out for several reasons:
Payout for a purchase through the link (most common)
Payout for signing up for something
Payout for clicks (uncommon)
Payout for taking certain action through the link
A good example of a company that pays out for a purchase would be Bluehost. They have an affiliate program that pays out a decent commission when someone uses your link to buy their web hosting service.
A sponsorship is basically when a company hires you to do a specific post or campaign for them on your blog. They pay you an agreed amount to make the post and promote it. It is another way for companies to use your blog to advertise to their ideal customers.
Expect to get sponsorships after creating heavy traffic to your blog consistently.
Getting sponsorships is closely related to getting freelance work, but you’re not gonna get a sponsorship without a blog or a large social following.
If you want to look for sponsorships to monetize your blog you are going to need to create more traffic to your blog through social media and SEO.
3. Make money blogging with ads
Ads is an easy simple no brainer way of making money with your blog.
If you generate traffic daily, there is no reason for you not to have a few ads making you extra money.
Ads work when you get views and clicks. The amount of money you make per view or per click is completely up to the program you sign up with.
There are program stipulations you need to be aware of for each program. Some are more lenient than others, but some won’t accept your application if you don’t have enough site views.
It might not be a good money maker starting out, but if you have a decent flow of traffic it can be a very passive income as you just set the ads on your page and that’s all you really have to do. After that, the amount you make really depends on your traffic.
Be aware that having ads on your page can slow your page down and some readers will not stay as long based on the ads getting in the way of your good content.
Also, be sure to communicate with your ad program and know how many ads they are going to add to your pages and how that will affect your traffic.
4. Sell digital products on your blog
At some point along your blogging journey you may decide it’s time to make your own informational products and promote them on your site.
You can make:
Ebooks
Online Courses
Books
Guides
PDFs
Subscription memberships
Online Courses are doing very well right now and if you want to make more as a blogger than this might be a great route to head next.
With an Online Course your skills in blogging, writing, and communication can transfer very well.
I’ve taken online courses that are mostly videos, some that are mostly writing, and some that are a great mixture of the two.
It doesn’t really matter what medium you choose to focus on as long as you deliver AMAZING content that changes people’s lives when they purchase it and learn from it. That’s at least how I feel as someone that purchases online courses.
5. How to make money blogging through a membership subscription site
Membership sites are like FB groups on steroids. Some are FB groups that are made private until you subscribe. Or you can include private FB groups in your online courses as well.
Either way you want to have continual posts in your membership community that daily move the group forward and creates TONS of worthwhile information for your memberships to want to be a part of.
The key to making great consistent money through a membership subscription is that once someone tries it they have the feeling that there is valuable information they’ll be missing out on if they lose access to it.
At that point, you can grow a consistent monthly income from the members only site alone.
Any membership site can have churn out, but the more you are able to have a consistent valuable discussion going on and add value to the group weekly and monthly the less churn out should be.
6. Use your blog to get paying clients
If you like working with people more than just writing than you will absolutely love finding clients to work for.
Client work is challenging. You have to know how to get what is in their minds onto your page.
Some great tips for landing clients on the first try:
Decide beforehand to ask good quality questions
Know which questions you are going to ask before the interview
Treat the client like a friend you are having coffee with
Listen intently
Repeat Important information back to the client and they will feel understood and that you care
Listen more than you talk
When you hear them state their problem, be sure to address how you are going to solve it
Doing well with clients means being a good communicator and serving the client.
If you don’t like that idea then client work might not be for you.
Freelance writing is 50% working on communication with clients and 50% writing.
That ebbs and flows given the client and the freelance writing you are doing for them, but just know that writing for clients is not purely writing like blogging for yourself, it takes a lot of communication skills.
Reviews are a great way to share with your readers what you think about a product or service.
What’s better than getting to try amazing new products and then getting to tell people about them?!
It’s nice because you can be honest in a review and just say what you like and what you don’t and you don’t really feel like you’re selling anything to anyone.
After you share your honest thoughts on it, you leave it up to your readers to make a good choice and get the product or not.
Reviews are an easy way to make money as a blogger.
8. Drive traffic to your site
Blogging isn’t ALL writing.
A good amount of the work you will put into any successful blog will be promotion and figuring out ways to get eyeballs looking at your site.
You have to drive traffic and keep traffic. Both can be difficult and have different but key strategies.
Driving traffic is a mixture of using social media to spread the word about valuable information and products on your site and using SEO best practices.
Keeping traffic is about setting up promotions to your blog that turn into LONG LASTING sources of traffic.
Long lasting traffic comes from strategic guest posts and automated or manual social media systems you set up.
9. Choose a blog host
If you want to make money blogging you will have to get blog hosting and own your own domain.
Ad networks and affiliate programs won’t work with you unless you own your website and clients most likely won’t take you seriously if you send them to a free blog page.
Kinsta is more expensive, but you pay for what you get. Their hosting creates faster site speeds which leads to better SEO and is better for sites that have high amounts of traffic.
Choose your blogging platform. You should take a few moments to understand the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.
Understand that they are not the same and they are vastly different in user friendliness depending on how you want to make your site and the versatility of what you might be looking to monetize with it.
Just a couple things, wordpress.com doesn’t allow you to use free plugins but wordpress.org has a massive amount of free plugins to help you make your blog everything you want it to be.
I personally use WordPress.org. So far I like it and I REALLY enjoy the resources and the free plugins I can use.
Overall, there are many strategies to making money with your blog and I would definitely recommend doing a little bit of everything.
You should definitely do your best to diversify your blogging income then if one doesn’t work out you have more to rely on.
I would also suggest working on one or two at a time. Focus in on one form of income and make it work really well. After you nail down one or two forms of blogging income you will feel ready to get another one working for you.
Did I miss any blogging forms of income?
What income do you like best?
What income works the best for you?
What is the easiest way you have made money blogging?
