I’ll be the first one to say that I don’t love writing dialogue.
The actual task of recording down their conversation is quite un-riveting for me personally.
That being said, analyzing dialogue and the actual process of creating it, thinking through it, and revealing character using dialogue is quite fun.
It shows your reader:
– What’s going on in characters heads
– What their normal life is like
– Into scenes that they might otherwise not be able to see
– The story
– What makes characters different
– What makes them similar
– It can persuade your reader to believe something about a character that may end up being a great twist later
– Suspense
– Drama
– Conflict
– It also makes pages easier to read through
Think about people talking normally.
When you’re out the next time to the movies or mall or restaurant, out to the groceries or whatever.
Be purposeful to hear the way people talk to you and others.
Even think about the way you speak to others and your mannerism.
You can log this information away as normal speech patterns.
The more people and cultures you interact with the more dialects and different speech patterns you find.
But a great way to figure out how to give your characters the right words and thoughts is to listen to people in your real life.
Talk your dialogue out loud.
Another great dialogue practice is to have your character’s conversations out loud with yourself and maybe your editor or friend. Whoever you have that’s willing.
When you hear it out loud it gives it an entirely new feel and it’ll be easier to tell if it sounds weird, odd, or abnormal.
Draft it out.
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard when it finally comes to sitting down and typing it out on the keys is to write it out without making many punctuations at first.
Just let the words flow fast and naturally so that you can feel what it’s going to look like and sound like right away without stopping much to be distracted by punctuation
Don’t be overly concerned with he said, she said just yet except to just keep it organized.
This will really free you up to create the dialogue and have it come out right rather than being bogged down in the first draft by all the writing technical work.
5 Tips on Naturally Writing Effective Dialogue
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Add the punctuation after you feel the dialogue is right.
Take your time in the editing process of your dialogue to make sure it sounds natural and each character has their own voice just like a real human.
When their talking and interaction seems right for them add the punctuation.
This helps compartmentalize the creative process from the technical process.
Common dialogue pitfalls to watch out for.
– Don’t overuse names.
Overusing someone’s name in real life is weird and it’s weird in writing too. Unless your character is a creepy salesperson.
– Try not to create a repetitive chain of information.
If you need two characters to talk about information that you already introduced once just make it that the second character found out from another source.
“Did you hear about so and so?”
“Yeah I did. Jackie just told me. Crazy right?”
– People in real life day umm a lot and make filler noise. Characters do not mostly.
Take this thought liberally as every once in a while it helps make a certain character to give them a weird noise that they make while they are thinking, but for the most part, cut it out.
– Get on get out.
Make each line have a purpose.
Most characters shouldn’t talk too much. And other characters shouldn’t talk too little but our dialogue needs to have a point and move the characters forward in the plot.
If they decide to head for Starbucks to gab about ‘whatever’ in reality one of the characters is about to bump into someone important.
Otherwise they need to be meeting up at Starbucks to discuss things that are important to the plot and revelation of character.
– Help the reader see who’s talking without being annoyingly redundant.
He said.
She said.
He asked.
She said.
We don’t have to add ‘they said’ at the end or beginning of every quotation.
The goal is to just make sure that we are clearly letting the reader know who is talking and then write the dialogue in such a way that they can skim through and it’s very clear who is saying what even if we stop writing he said/she said/ she asked, etc.
Make your main goal to just tell the story and make it simple. Don’t be tempted to over display what they are feeling with adverbs while they speak.
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4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More
The cliffhanger is not a new technique.
In fact, writers have literally made movies around the idea of dangling our beloved character off the side of a cliff to get us at the edge of our seats, biting our nails, ignoring everything else in the universe to see “what happens next?!”
Thankfully even though this technique has been waaaaayyy overused. It still works.
We can definitely add this one to the proverbial toolbox.
Keep it simple
We don’t always have to dangle our character over a cliff in order to make this technique work.
In reality, this won’t work if we do it too much. Our reader will see through our antics and get bored.
If our main character almost dies at the end of every chapter hanging over a cliff, you can bet the reader will be saying “fool me twice, shame on me” by chapter three.
Instead find creative ways to make little cliffhangers during chapters and at the end of chapters.
Them almost dying at the end of every chapter makes for boring and not suspensful, but if they were about to lose a relationship, or be caught doing something they shouldn’t and the reader has to go to the next chapter to find out what happens next, then you’re winning.
Examples:
– Characters are in a fight and might break up
– Something is about to hurt character like a dangerous animal
– One character just went missing
– A character just witnessed another doing something suspicious and unexplainable
Basically we want to create a smaller conflict that needs to be resolved in our reader’s mind that will gnaw at their curiosity until they get the answer.
If we create a question for our reader to look forward to the answer, we better darn well answer it.
And a great skill to practice is the creative ability to create questions when we give answers.
Use dialogue to help the reader see the answer and the next question.
Dan Brown does an amazing job with this in the DaVinci Code.
He uses Langdon in this way.
Langdon will answer one of the mysterious questions, one of the riddles, but then he’ll say something to the effect of, “but if that’s true then what about this?“
And then Langdon will say, “we need to go to the Sistine Chapel,” and before we know it Langdon is being shot at on the way to the Sistine Chapel and we’re hooked to find out if he’ll make it.
This is genius for answering a question we made and leading the reader right into the next one without drawing it out to much and leaving the reader bored as they wait for the next riddle to solve.
4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More
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Your character can simply say, “this answers this question, but now we have this question to deal with.”
Now when your character needs to go to the next place we are happily following along.
It would be a bad idea to have no reason for your character to go to the next place and we just somehow end up there and stumble upon the next clue.
This technique can be toyed with, but I think you get the idea.
Create questions while answering questions, but BE SURE to answer all your questions eventually. Don’t leave your reader feeling cheated of the time they invested in reading your story.
Make them feel like they can predict what’s going to happen next, only to fool them.
Lead your reader into the most obvious choice or answer to the riddle.
And just when they think they’ve figured it out, put a twistaroo on it. (twistaroo is not a real word 🙂 )
This is called a good twist.
One of my all time top 10 fave twist moments was in the Sixth Sense. “I see dead people.”
I recommend watching it if you haven’t and as long as you aren’t easily spooked.
Spoiler alert:
The twist in the end was so shocking to me, I never saw it coming that Bruce Willis was dead the entire time.
It was like a left hook sucker punch for me and I, to this day cannot think of a better twist or reveal. Now that I think about it, it’s easily in my top 5 twisty movies.
So just like that, lead your reader into thinking that they know where you’re headed just to cut them off at the pass.
Surprise them wherever you can and they’ll love you for it.
Give them something to look forward to at the start
Don’t waste any time setting your reader up for cliffhangers.
Get started right away in chapter letting them know they are in for a fun ride.
Our main job as writers is to entertain.
Start off with a bang:
– “That’s the moment he knew he’d never see her again.”
– “As he looked at the clock sweat began to fall off his nose. He was taking to long.”
– “Bubbles were still surfacing as I dove into the river after the sinking suburban.”
Create mystery, intrigue, and suspense right away.
Don’t waste time explaining the plot, characters, or other detailed ideas. Allow the plot to unfold without them thinking, “oh so the plot is going to be about this.”
Allow your reader to discover clever ideas as you get them to turn the next page with cliffhangers.
Don’t let the reader in. Don’t show all your cards too quickly.
Be strategic.
Set up a powerplay by creating a moment of intense intrigue and use it to carry your reader to the next plot point without them knowing how they got there.
Entertain them as you reveal that your character’s mother is the true villain and everything they were raised to think was a lie.
It’s absolutely okay and maybe a good idea to make your reader confused and in the dark as long as you are going to show them the light and solve their confusion by the end of the story.
Never leave your reader feeling, “Why did I just read that? What was the point of all that?”
Give them something to continually look forward to or else they will look forward to it elsewhere.
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4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More
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Some of us loved it. Some of us hated it, and some people just liked a few things about school.
But nonetheless whether we hate it or love it it has been a part of most readers’ lives.
Writing schools in fiction doesn’t have to be a difficult daunting task. It can be fun and full of creativity. Thankfully many writers before us have created schools in fiction and so we have a lot of wisdom to glean from.
Creating a fictional school is a great way to resonate with audiences and bring many story elements that are nostalgic to a broad amount of readers.
We don’t have to go far to find inspiration for writing a school in fiction because the majority of humans on the planet attend some type of school in their lifetime.
These are some of the best places to draw inspiration from for writing schools in fiction. Draw from your own experiences and memories. Do you remember the teachers that you couldn’t stand?
Do you remember the ones that bored you do death?
Do you remember who you sat next to in math or science?
These are the places to take inspiration from and turn it into a story of your own.
Teachers
Everyone has teachers they’ve loved or hated.
There are so many vibrant teacher personalities that can add unique Dynamics to any story.
You can have:
– the crazy teacher
– Fun teacher
– Strict teacher
– Mean teacher
Teachers can be supportive characters and challengers.
A really fun dynamic is having the teacher be the ultimate villain hiding in plain sight.
Teachers are a huge resource to a writer making a fictional school.
Peers
Again there’s an endless world of possibilities in peers.
Every personality you can think of under the sun you can add and take away.
There could be many relationships or only a few.
There could be a few peers that play pivotal roles. Or maybe just one repeating character peer.
The location of the school
The location of the school is a big deal.
Is it near the main character’s house?
Is it far away?
Do they walk there?
Or do they have to take Transportation?
Is it other worldly?
6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction
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Depending on where the school is, it means a lot for how the reader will preconceive the details of the school and what it looks on the outside and the inside.
The number of students
The number of students affects:
– Sports
– Classroom size
– Competitions
– Band
– Music
– Arts
– Number of classes
– Number of teachers
The number of students affects many details and should be considered.
Curriculum
Is this a regular school?
Is it a school for the dead?
Is it a magical school?
School for animals?
School for adventurers?
What is the school’s main purpose?
Some extra random thoughts to consider for writing your fictional school:
Are there competing schools?
How are the students arranged in the classroom?
When it comes to making a fictional school there are lots and lots of details to sort out.
The more questions you can answer before writing chapter one the better and it’s best to write these answers down somewhere so that you have a reference to look back on.
Otherwise it’s tough to remember how you first felt about the school and what you dreamed it would be.
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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes NOT BORING While Revealing the Story to Your Reader
Master writers and editors know what it takes to make scenes not boring while revealing the story.
Let’s talk about what makes a scene boring.
There is one major thing you don’t want to do to your readers when writing a scene and revealing the story.
Don’t make it work for them to read it.
Period.
If you make it a ton of work for them to get through chapter one scene one, they are going to put down the book and probably never want to pick it up again.
Here is how you make it a ton of work for your reader to make it through your scene.
Chapter 1: I tell them about the world, the shops in the world, the streets in the world, the mountains, the trees, what the birds look like, the cool and exotic plants. I tell them about the characters and every tiny detail about them. I tell them about her hair and her eyelashes. What she thinks about the flowers…
Do you get where we are going with this?
We are being a bit exaggerated here, but let’s be honest, it happens. And stuff like that used to work, but not today.
To make a scene “too much work didn’t read” (TMWDR) aka (TLDR) we give them a million descriptive details to read through without once moving the story along!
And our reader is left feeling like, “let’s get the ball rolling people!”
We can give them the details about the beautiful world in our imagination, but give it in small doses and allow them to use some imagination.
Move the story forward
We can give them some descriptions and we should, but great authors know that in order to be allowed to explain what a character looks like we have to earn the right to talk about them and why they are important.
The way that we earn the right to tell the reader anything while revealing the story, is when they are thinking this one secret thought.
We have to put this one thought in their minds and keep it there, the moment we’ve lost this thought that we’ve put in their heads, they’ll put down the book.
That secret thought is the same one all great writers use across all mediums, whether it’s story, freelance, copywriting, blogging, or marketing.
The secret thought is: “If I just read a little bit further, I’ll find out what I want to know.”
When we are so into reading anything, a story, an article, a blog, we have this same thought too. It’s really more of a feeling. But we read on intently looking for the answer to our questions.
Questions like, “What will happen next?” “What is going to happen to this character now?” are what we want our readers to think as writers in any medium.
The way we plant the secret question in their head using story
The way we create the secret question is simple.
Keeping it in their minds is the hard part about writing a story and writing one that readers can’t put down until they’ve read every last page.
The way is simple but executing takes time, practice, and insight.
How do we create the secret question in their head?
We create a problem that must be resolved.
The way we make scenes not boring
The way to make scenes not boring is to move the story along. (I know we said this above but go with me here as we explain further.)
We need to give the reader something to be curious about and look forward to.
Along the way we slowly but surely reveal characters and scenery and explain little bits and pieces of the world and bring them into our world and share it with them.
But to make a scene not boring and to move the story along we must create curiosity about what happens next!
How to get your reader thinking what happens next?
It is the coveted moment. The reader can’t stop reading page after page, chapter after chapter all because they keep thinking, “what happens next?”
But how do we get them thinking this through every chapter?
I already told them about the hero and the bad guy and he wants to destroy the world, what else keeps them curious?!
The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story
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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story
The journey.
Moving the story along is the journey it takes to get from the introduction of our characters to the main problem that faces them to seeing it out to the end and all the misadventures in between.
But how do we make the journey interesting?
Let’s ask a more detailed question.
The one we’ve been asking all along.
How do I make each scene interesting?
Give each scene a purpose.
If every single scene we bring the writer into doesn’t have a purpose in moving the story forward then why on Earth are we telling them about the scene?!
So when you plot your outline be thinking of each scene and the “why” behind it’s necessary existence, because if your reader reads one or two scenes that seem to be not purposeful, that is, there is no “pay off” for them taking the time to read it they will likely put down the book.
Yes, in our scenes we may want to show a certain detail about character development or reveal a hidden artifact, but the easiest way to get the reader through it and on to the next page is to create mini difficulties for the characters.
Our main problem may be that the antagonist(s) wants to blow up the world but while our hero is on the way to stop the no good antagonist(s) they need to run into many challenging obstacles on the way.
Think of your story as more of an obstacle course
To get to the finish line our protagonist needs to run through the maze, climb the slippery slime wall, survive the dread log tumble, jump through the fiery hoop, and before they can even see the finish line they have to carry the weighted sack of fortitude up mount killmyback.
That’s a story.
And each obstacle is a scene. We see the obstacles and how the character handles them and each obstacle reveals more and more to us their true character. (“Show, don’t tell.”)
That’s how we move the story along, keep the reader interested, and reveal the true nature of our characters as we go 🙂
If we told the reader all about how each obstacle was made, how long it took, and about the nuts and bolts of it, that might be a little interesting (if you are trying to write a documentary about the story) but not if they haven’t seen it in action and seen how the course wrecks a character and is extremely interesting to watch.
Give each scene a purpose while you are revealing the story.
Make an obstacle around that purpose.
And your reader will be thinking that coveted question, “What’s going to happen next?!”
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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story
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But nobody wants arrogance and there’s a fine grey line between the two (is it grey or gray?).
If your character is too confident then it comes across as arrogant and your reader will start to loathe them.
But one main reason most people like the jerk is because she is confident.
Confidence is a very attractive quality.
What is the opposite of confident?
– Needy
– Clingy
– Whining
– Pathetic
– Self-loathing
“Ewww…”
If you’ve been reading and a character is too sympathetic towards their own bad situation it comes across as unattractive. This is self-loathing, the opposite of cool, confident, and collected.
These are simple ways that you can write your lovable jerk. Avoid the above list.
Part of the reason people love a jerk is because without shouting “I’m really confident!” they just are. They ooze cool and confident because they aren’t afraid to say what they are thinking because they could care less what the other character thinks.
If your character is too confident this plays the opposite and your reader starts to despise that character.
We have to let the confident vibes go a little but then play some other strings too to bring the whole song together.
#2 Can’t Keep Up With Him
Quick Wit
Something that helps our jerk be admirable and get away with being a little bit of a jerk is having a quick wit.
Remember all those comebacks you thought of a day later and said “Ugh! I should have said that!”
Your lovable jerk is quick and never misses an opportunity for a quick comeback.
What’s at play here?
People admire and love to be around a person with an entertaining quick wit.
There is a give and take though. (Just remember that to nail down the lovable jerk you’re always on a fine line between annoying and suave, attractive and not so much.)
This doesn’t mean your character is running around insulting everyone. That’s a jerk, not a lovable jerk. Everyone loves to hate the know-it-all jerk and they want to see them get their comeuppance.
That’s the opposite of what you want your reader to feel about this character.
You want your character to be a bit of a jerk but at the right place and time.
Timing is important.
Think of Sherlock. Extremely intelligent and a faster mind than anyone he interacts with. He could dance circles around anyone with his wit, but utterly rude the majority of the time.
Even though he can be insultingly rude at times we still love him and want him to accomplish his goals.
We love him and find him interesting because he is fun to watch and extremely intelligent.
We also like him despite his jerky side for another reason.
#3 Good Will
Slightly good intentions
This works with anti-heroes too.
You can love a jerk like Sherlock because he ultimately is looking to stop the bad guys and save the innocent.
His internal motives may be complex, but at the end of the day his actions save the victim and stop the villain.
In a scenario like this we excuse bad behavior because we experience mostly good behavior.
We as humans are very good at overlooking some bad if the good outweighs it in our opinions.
For instance, if you made a list of pros and cons about a character like Sherlock his pros would outweigh his cons for most readers. Not all of course, but most.
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How to Write the Lovable Jerk
#4 We are Hoping He’s not as Deep as a Puddle
Character Depth
A lovable jerk can be nothing but a Jerk at the beginning of our reader meeting them, but if they don’t change slightly or if more about their character doesn’t get revealed by you the writer, as time goes on, your reader will never like them.
For example, Finnick from Hunger Games is a jerk character that many fans love.
It helps that he’s attractive but let’s take a deeper look. We all know looks can give you an advantage, but they can only take you so far before you’re labeled as an attractive, stuck up jerk.
When we first meet Finnick he’s just a jerk. Pain and simple.
But then we spend more time with him and find out he’s for the rebellion.
Further in we see multiple caring sides of him as he tries to protect all those around him. He carries an elderly handicap woman on his back to try to save her life.
His fiance is captured and turned crazy and he remains faithful to her. In the end he gives his own life for Katniss Everdeen and a cause bigger than himself.
Finnick may be stuck up and full of himself at first glance but with time we see his depth of character and that makes him a lovable jerk.
#5 Nobody Likes A Whiny Whiner
There’s a specific writing trick where you can add a sad incident or backstory to a character to gain some sympathy for the character.
Tread lightly with this one.
It can be easy to start with that or to drone on and on about how terrible and tragic their unfortunate event is, but don’t do this.
If you are going for a lovable jerk something bad or many bad things can happen to them, but they need to react correctly in order for your reader to feel positively for them.
Unless you use it as humor or a small arc in their story they can’t wallow in sadness for an entire chapter or two. Humorously they can wallow a little, but realistically it can push your reader away from that character if you’re not careful.
If you want them to be lovable they can only mourn for a moment or for a time that the reader can fast forward through.
For example, “he drank himself to sleep every night that year.” And done.
Okay, realistically we can give a few more fun facts about their depression than just that, but soon and very soon something that sparks change needs to take place.
You can use sadness for depth of character but if your jerk is to be loved, make it short.
Another way to use tragedy in your jerk’s life is to make him get over it quickly and to move on.
This can be helpful for creating character depth as well.
#6 “I’ve Been Looking at the Man in the Mirror”
Change
One really easy way to write a lovable jerk is to create a character that is about to make a BIG change.
We’ve seen this done many, many, many, many (if you didn’t know, it’s been done a lot) times and it works out equally well despite maybe being a little over done.
One of the major monarchs of this type of lovable jerk is Scrooge.
Scrooge is an iconic lovable jerk that starts out as… well… he starts out as a Scrooge (pun intended) but we see a transformation in his character and in the end he’s super generous.
Another good example is Jack in The Family Man.
Jack leaves his high school sweetheart for riches and success.
When we meet him he’s so high on the high horse that we couldn’t stand to be around him, but as the story goes on he completely changes into a really awesome character.
This type of transformation, redemptive story is a great way to make a lovable jerk.
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One thing Tolkien, Rowling, and Lewis all have in common?
They all know/knew how to create characters that readers love and root for.
What are the secret ingredients they used that we can too?
Child-likeness.
Vulnerability.
The Underdogs.
Naivety.
Child-likeness
In all their stories that ended up changing the world, they either chose children to follow or childlike creatures.
In Harry Potter, we follow Ron, Hermione, and Harry. They all start out as tots and we follow them through some horrific trials hoping nothing bad happens and that they win and that the bad guys lose.
Why is this?
It is because of innocence. We as humans favor the innocent party and blame and condemn the bad guilty party.
Harry didn’t do anything to Tom Riddle to make find and kill his parents and try to kill him. We obviously think this is horrid and we wish Harry will survive and that Tom will receive just judgment.
That is how Rowling got us to first root for Harry.
We started to care for him when he was only an innocent baby and someone evil came and did horrible things to him that ruined his life.
Lewis did a similar thing choosing different children to follow in Narnia.
For instance in the lion the witch and the wardrobe we see Lucy an innocent little girl lost in a strange world with no one to help her against the evil witch that rules over the land in great fear and darkness.
Mr. Tumnus finds Lucy and tricks her into falling asleep at this house so he can deliver her over to the evil witch queen.
Vulnerability
Again we have a vulnerable, naive and innocent youth pitted against an older more powerful character with an unreasonable motive to hurt or kill the child.
Instantly as a rational human, we are rooting for the poor child to not be harmed and for the evil queen to receive punishment for her evil acts.
It’s only natural to feel this way given the scenario.
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How to Write Characters Readers Love to Root For
The Underdogs
Tolkien didn’t use children. But he chose creatures that had a scenario that was just as persuasive: Hobbits.
Hobbits are extremely childlike in nature and we would never want any harm to befall them.
When we think about Sauron sending orcs to carry out genocide on them and burn down the shire we are in no way rooting for Sauron. We are most assuredly hoping for the best for the little fury footed hobbits.
In each of these scenarios, the author gave us a world where the underdogs are pitted against antagonists that are much more powerful and cunning than they.
Why do we root for the underdog?
Who do we love a great underdog story?
Don’t we resonate with the underdog?
Don’t most of us feel like the underdog that is just trying to make it?
Naivety
We were once children and had adventures of our own.
We have children and see them and want to protect them.
Children are the picture of innocence and naivety and we are naturally inclined to root for them.
Use this knowledge if you dare to write your next story.
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Whether the villain knows it or not their main purpose is to oppose the protagonist and create conflict.
The villain or antagonist can take many forms
Our villain is extremely versatile and can take any form.
They could be human, animal, or even an event in nature.
In order to create an epic villain though, you will want it to be intelligent as these make the most emotionally striking villains.
There are a few villain archetypes we will mention below.
We can have multiple villainous characters
Also it should be noted that you can have multiple characters that have goals against your main character but in the end it is best to have one that over arches the rest.
For example, in Harry Potter, Harry has many antagonists:
– Draco
– The Malfoy family
– Bellatrix Black
– Nigini
– Draco’s gang
– Death Eaters
Even some friends betray him along the way, but Voldemort outplays them all.
You can have a Gray Villain
This type of character would be labeled as dynamic.
We can do this type of characterization with any of our characters.
But with a dynamic villain that means that they may have some inner conflict about good and evil.
They may believe that the evil they do undershadows the overall good they are trying to accomplish.
An example would be Thanos.
He believed that the genocide he was carrying out was for the good of all living beings. Even though he murdered half the universe he believed that he was its unsung hero.
This would be a type of gray Villain.
They aren’t black and white.
They aren’t intentionally good or evil. They are somewhere in the middle which if done well causes conflict wand differing opinions amongst readers.
Think Loki.
Sometimes Loki does evil things and sometimes he helps the hero. It all depends. He is a Gray villain.
As readers we aren’t quite sure what he will do next.
This keeps our readers on their toes with our villain. They never know what he’ll do.
Another good example is Kylo Ren.
A dynamic villain can have redemptive qualities like Kylo Ren.
This antagonist struggles with the light and dark side within him.
He does terrible things in the name of darkness, but in the end turns out to help the protagonist, our heroine Rey.
Which is a parallel to his grandfather and mentor Darth Vader who also struggled with the light and dark in him to eventually in the end be redeemed for attempting to destroy Sidious and save the Galaxy.
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Again a static character can be any part of the cast, but the static character is 100% one thing and doesn’t change.
A static villain is purely 100% evil to the core.
As a writer we can hide that evil for a time but at the end of the story we will have revealed to the world that they were down right rotten and there is no saving them.
There are many good examples of static villains:
– Jafar
– Voldemort
– Hades
– Darth Sidious
– The depiction of the joker from Dark Knight
There is much inspiration to draw from for a static villain.
The more sinister you make them the better.
Try to reveal deeper and deeper over time that this villain is despicable.
Make your readers guess a little but in the end hit it home so there is no guessing.
“Some people just want to watch the world burn.” Alfred about the Joker.
That’s a static villain. They take pleasure in evil.
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Stephen King is known for his horror writing, but if you’ve seen anything of his quotes or read his thoughts on writing.
You’ll see right away that he is blunt, straight to the point, and not afraid to say what he’s thinking.
That’s a big part of what makes his writing tips enjoyable and refreshing. He’s not political and he’s been in the business long enough to know that you just can’t please everyone.
So don’t worry about pleasing everyone.
No matter what you write, if you write, someone or some group will find you and try to discourage you.
For instance, full disclosure:
Just recently a member of a group on Facebook found our site and trolled How to do the write thing.
Something we said in one of our villains posts offended he or she who shall not be named and they went and reported it to the entire Facebook group.
The entire group nasty things about us and some of them commented on our site yelling at us and telling us how horrible we were.
To be honest at first I was worried and shocked, but I got some great advice from a blogger that I found while Googleing looking for advice.
They reminded me that even if you try your hardest to be kind, polite, and helpful no matter what, if you put yourself out there someone will find you and try to discourage you or take you down.
The best way to deal with it is to expect it and react with positive thoughts.
So that’s what we did. We didn’t retaliate. We moved forward. We changed the post so that it wasn’t perceived as offensive and we enjoyed the extra traffic we got from the Facebook group 🙂
That’s another lesson to be expounded upon later: “bad publicity isn’t always bad marketing”
So the first lesson is:
1. Don’t be afraid to put yourself and your writing out on the line
Some people will love it and some people will hate it. This is to be expected.
We don’t have to explain ourselves to every person that finds our writing and opinions offensive.
Personally I think we should do our best to be kind, polite, and live at peace with one another.
But if you don’t want to offend anyone or have anyone mad at you the only solution is to live in a cave and do nothing. Hah! Even then someone might find you and be offended that you’ve decided to live as a hermit.
Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean we’re saying writers should run their mouths and be purposefully offensive.
We’re just saying you need to go ahead and write and don’t sweat the small stuff 😉
“If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.” – Stephen King
Stephen himself used to be ashamed because he would receive hate mail and was accused of very nasty things.
But at a point he learned that no matter what if you write, and write well, someone will find a reason to not like you.
“If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all,” – S.K.
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If you didn’t know it yet your first draft of any story is trash.
It has to go through the editing process many times to become something that people will want to read and enjoy reading.
Authors have been using editors for a long time now. Don’t make the mistake of being the first writer in centuries that thinks they don’t need an editor.
And furthermore don’t expect that every story you write will be worth a reader spending their time on.
We should write in this way.
Does your story interest you? Would you buy it? Do you like it? Would you like to see it in a movie or TV show?
Most of us are biased. We love our stories like they were children, but if you don’t even like your own story you’ve got a real problem.
Why would I expect someone to read what even I don’t like?
But don’t let this fact get you down.
That’s not the point.
“Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”
We should prepare ourselves for the hard long journey of writing.
We should react to it with optimism.
We should know the bumps along the way and be prepared to accept them and move forward.
So many writers have heard more rejection at first than acceptance and it is the ones that kept moving forward despite failure that succeeded.
Of course there are outliers, but this is not to be expected.
3. Expect to be rejected
Expect some failure, but just keep working and moving forward.
Speaking of failure. My first job writing was for $20 an hour. And I was excited.
I thought that was a lot to be paid for a writer and I thought this was a great opportunity!
I was fired after 3 hours.
It was a deep blow.
And to be completely honest with you, it was extremely discouraging.
The employer was at least very nice and cordial about it, but it was rejection and failure.
But I didn’t want to give up.
I continued moving forward and after A LOT of trial and error I made it to getting paid $150+ an hour before I took a break from freelance writing. To give some perspective it was over the course of 2-3 years that I worked my way up through the freelance market.
I don’t say that fact to brag, but I want people to have and see first hand that perseverance is important.
They say that most people’s “lucky break” happens after years of hard work and perseverance. Doesn’t sound so lucky anymore.
For sure, it’s hard and rejection hurts. (Whoever says it doesn’t is lying. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but rejection will never hurt me.” – lie.)
But don’t quit.
Stephen wrote “Carrie” in a trailer, very poor, and it was rejected many times, but he persevered.
And you can too.
Next we are actually going to disagree with Stephen.
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Disclaimer: (this is just MY opinion. You are welcome to have a different one :))
Personally, watching TV has fed my creativity, not hurt it. And watching movies has given me the ability to see how I want things to play out in my stories and writing.
It’s easier for me to imagine my character jump, flip, dance, and swing a sword. Or shoot a bolt of lightning out of her hand having seen it with me own two eyes on TV and in movies.
I don’t know why but that’s just my experience that watching stories gives me ideas, it doesn’t hurt them.
But here is a critical piece of advice.
Watch critically, not passively.
When I’m watching I’m not JUST enjoying. I’m thinking about
– Actions
– Acting
– Dialogue
– The plot
– Subplots
– Story
– Character arcs
– Character development
– Things they chose that I like
– Stuff they did I didn’t like
I’m learning and putting into practice while I watch.
For example, we just got done watching Colony on Netflix (recommend if you like dystopian sci-fi. 2.5 on family friendliness as there is definitely skip worthy scenes)
If you do plan on watching it, spoiler alert:
In Colony, one of the main characters Will Bowman is a good man who chooses to make compromising choices to save his family.
His character is however dependable and positive even though his life is chaos 24/7.
Instead of whiny or wallowing because of his problems he looks for and acts on a solution.
They maintain his faithful demeanor through all of season 1 and 2, but season 3 they did something that made me cringe.
They turned him into an emo version of himself where he was angry and wore black all the time.
I couldn’t stand it. I understood that he was grieving, so I waited to see how they would use it, but it was SO out of character for him. At some points he recovered a little but in the end he kept making choices that I felt were choices his character might not make but changing producers might…
This happens from time to time with TV and movies. They change producers or directors in the middle of a story and things go coocoo. But that’s beside the main lesson here. (Subpoint: be careful with your character arcs and don’t hand the story over to someone random in the 3rd season 🙂 )
So when we watch we as writers can see in stories what we like and what we don’t like.
We can watch and read with a critical eye and mind looking to see the way we want to do it and finding best practices.
This helps us create our own voice and style that readers will know they will get if they read our stories.
Stephen says TV is “poisonous to creativity”. I haven’t found that to be true for me but the opposite.
But he does say, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot,”
I agree with the sentiment. We MUST read a lot and write a lot to be writers.
There is no way around that in my mind at this point.
But I don’t think we have to “toss the TV out with the bathwater” if you know what I mean.
5. Expect the process to be rough
“there’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.”
Writing is not just tough because other people won’t always like what you write.
Sometimes we are our own worst critics and self doubt and self doubt can persuade us to go no further or that the story we have isn’t good enough.
But that’s not really up for us to decide.
All we can really do is put in the work and put it out there and see what follows.
It’s a risk for sure, but the question is “is it worth the risk to you?” Only you can answer that question for yourself.
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10 Writing Lessons From Stephen King
6. Writing can be very lonely
Stephen gives us a powerful image by saying that writing fiction is like crossing an ocean in a bathtub.
You’re not moving very quickly. The space is tight and you are very much ALONE in a sea of black depth.
Sounds frightening, and at times it is.
No one wants to be that alone for that long.
But if we are going to give our writing a chance to live and do something we have to be the ones to tell the story, or it might never be told.
7. Enjoy your process
Every writer has a space and a process.
If you don’t that’s okay, it just means you haven’t found it yet.
And sometimes we have to move and change our process and that’s okay too.
We move around a lot, but right now my process is to go out on our back screened-in porch and write outside. When I first wake up I have my morning routine I enjoy and reading is a part of it. Next, I head outside.
I love nature and the natural noises that come with it (birds, squirrels, breeze, leaves, etc). It’s a very peaceful environment for me with little to no distraction. I am really able to zone in and focus. When I look up the outdoor smells, the greenery, and the trees all give me a sense of happiness. (Sounds like a tree hugger)
I have a specific chair I sit in and depending on the day I either write on my phone or laptop. These days I’m enjoying my phone more.
It could be very different for you and that’s fine. You might hate nature. You might love writing in your closet or car.
I actually heard a story of a lady recently who was having trouble finding a place to write with no distractions.
With a family and tight quarters, this place did not exist in her home.
She started going out to her car and writing. It took her some time, but she ended up being able to finally finish her entire novel in her car!
So you may think you have nowhere to write but if you get creative you’ll find somewhere.
Enjoy finding what you like to be your space and process.
Maybe you like to write with pen and paper.
Maybe you like to write in your closet.
Maybe you want to write on your roof.
Whatever it is, find a space/ process of your own and use that to make a happy habit you enjoy.
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“Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground … Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.”
We have to unearthed our characters and our stories.
They have to be dug up from our own minds.
They have to be revealed from the world around us.
Stories are about the journey and they lurk around every corner waiting to be discovered. I’m not talking about some mystic thing here. I’m being literal.
If you watch the news or go to school or go to work, stories are happening all around you. You only have to be willing to see them, find them, and write them.
Fiction is so fun at times because we can take details from real life and throw them into a story for our reader to enjoy.
Sometimes the hardest part is doing the long tedious work of discovering our story along the way.
We have an idea and we love it but we don’t know how it ends yet and we don’t have all the middle pieces to get to the end. The only way to get there is to think fng start to write and see where it goes.
Another hard thing can be that we know we’ve discovered a really great story but sitting down and trying to communicate it to someone else through words feels like it just doesn’t do it justice.
These are all hurdles and hard work if one is to be a writer.
“The most important things are the hardest things to say,”
“They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings.”
Sometimes it is hard to put into words the drama that is playing in our minds, but that is to be expected and worked through. There is no way around it.
9. Don’t over-describe
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s,” – S.K.
We really have to think more simply about description and telling a story.
It’s important to focus on getting what we see in our heads into their heads using just words on a page.
We don’t have to overthink it more than this. When we decide to over-describe we can often lose our reader to boredom.
“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling,” – S. K.
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“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones,” – S. K.
It’s easy to make the mistake to think that the reader is bored of simple words. This is a BIG mistake
Writer’s get bored with limited vocabulary, not readers.
Now there are definitely readers that want bigger vocabulary and harder reading and if you want to serve that audience, that’s fine but for at least 90% of regular consuming readers the rule is write somewhere close to a 9th grade reading level.
The key is to know your audience. To whom are you writing?
– Children
– Teens
– Adults
– Academics
– Writer’s
– Etc
If we are writing to the masses and just trying to tell a good story, use simple words to give great imagery.
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5 Powerful Words that Express Danger + Writing Prompts
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5 Powerful Words that Express Danger + Writing Prompts
Be a smart writer and take advantage of every word.
Write powerful words when appropriate to trigger an emotional response from your reader.
You can write powerful words instead of dull words to incite a desirous psychological reaction in your reader while you have their attention.
Write power words to give your reader specific feelings about characters and events.
Use the powerful word in a natural way that comes across organic and smoothly. Do not force it. Just let it flow.
Power words are good for pivotal dialogue moments. They are good to consider for fiction as well as non-fiction.
Use power words to take your reader’s attention.
Draw their eyes and attention to where you want it the most.
Wake the reader up from zoning out while they are reading your piece.
Use power words strategically to get them from idea to idea.
Use simple power words that are easy to understand but that pack a punch compared to other boring words.
Write powerful words to keep your sentences interesting to your reader.
Don’t lose them by not drawing their attention back from losing focus.
When doing freelance writing projects use power words to write better-converting headlines and subject lines.
In blogging use power words in the titles and subheadings.
In emails use them in headlines and subject lines.
Don’t overdo it. Don’t try to force many into any one sentence unless it calls for it.
Hopefully, this fast short post helps you think through some of your own writing and where you can incorporate simple power words in a meaningful, natural, and effective way.
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If you enjoy 5 Powerful Words that Express Danger + 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 🙂
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