Learn everything about Tolkien, his writing, his world-building, and his books.
If you’re like me you find writers like J. R. R. Tolkien to be fascinating and extremely interesting to study.
It’s enlightening to know their writing process, any writing advice they gave, how they built their fictional worlds, and how they came up with names and places. Why they did what they did for the writing world and how.
I was recently lead to this extremely thorough resource on EVERYTHING Tolkien and I knew IMMEDIATELY that I wanted to share it with our audience at “How to Do the Write Thing.”
This resource is heavy with information, but there are plenty of gold nuggets and fun facts to dig up on most things you can think of for Tolkien. (For example, today I did some digging and learned how Tolkien named “The Shire.” You’ll find many things like that.)
If you want to know everything about J. R. R. Tolkien and his writing this will probably be your one-stop shop for a while.
If that sounds like something you be interested in you can find it here: Tolkien Society Journal
You might want to favorite this post so that it is easy to find your way back to their journal, because I found the site hard to navigate.
(Disclaimer: They have many free articles that are chalked full of amazing information, but to get their most recent information (anything in the past 2 years from the current date,) you have to become a member. I’m not personally a member and I still found the free information to be extremely immersive into the creative process of Tolkien. Feel free to do as you please with becoming a member or not.)
The website itself can be tough to navigate so just be aware, but if you dig, you’ll find some really interesting things.
Big Thank You to the Tolkien Society for putting this thing together so that Tolkien fans and writing can make great use of this wealth of knowledge.
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7 Best Writing Advice Tricks that are Simple Yet Profound
There really is no such thing as “the best writing advice.” If you spent all day looking up writing advice, you’d find a never-ending pile of writing tips. (Believe me. I’ve been doing it for years.)
But there are some tips (some cliché and some not,) that seem to be simple, yet timeless and profound.
Out of the mountain of writing advice you find here on the internet, you will find that some of these “helpful” tips are not helpful to you specifically, while others resonate with you profoundly and you will have them posted on your wall to remember every time you write.
Some of these have really resonated with writers and hopefully, they will with you too.
Please enjoy 🙂
Brandon Sanderson’s get better with every book.
Most writers start out dreaming about the fame and glory that comes with being a famous author. Their goal naturally becomes being a best-selling author.
Sanderson’s advice is to flip this idea on its head.
Instead, just focus on the journey of becoming a better author with every book, and then MAYBE someday you’ll be a best-selling author. It really shouldn’t be your only goal; however, because if it doesn’t happen you’ll continue to feel that you’ve failed in writing. (When in reality, this isn’t a good metric for success as a writer.)
If instead, you focus on just being better every time. You will become very satisfied in your writing process and it’s more likely that you’ll keep writing and one day publish and sell your stories.
If instead you put all your hopes and dreams into one book and it doesn’t turn out to be the next New York Times best-seller, you’ll feel you have failed and more than likely quit writing, which is, in turn, actually failing as a writer.
Ugh! It’s like the man peered into my life and poked a deep wound and said, “fix this.”
Most of us are probably notorious for starting something and never finishing it.
We get distracted with the other new shiny things when our first shiny thing takes too long. Then it becomes work and thus we just don’t want to do it anymore.
That’s writing a novel.
Just finishing the thing is one of the most rewarding and one of the most difficult things about writing a story. Actually, finishing can be so hard, but that’s why this advice is so profound for many writers.
When they hear it, they know all too well that it is extremely true and difficult just to finish a thing.
To this, I would say write more short stories. They are easier to start and finish. It helps writers get the ideas out but not feel so overwhelmed.
And it helps writers that struggle with finishing things to feel the reward of finishing a thing and hopefully they’ll want to do it again.
Try these two exercises:
Join a writers group for accountability.
Give yourself a deadline.
If You’re are in a writers group, you’ll feel an urge to finish the thing because the embarrassment of not finishing it feels worse than the work of finishing it.
Joining a writers group that sets deadlines and pushes each other to finish things will inevitably help us develop the habit to set our own deadlines and feel the enjoyment of accomplishing them.
Cal Newport’s Get so good that they can’t ignore you.
This is by far, one of my favorite pieces of advice. (From Cal Newport’s Book you can see here.)It’s very powerful and changes the narrative completely in writing and why you do it.
This probably resonates with me on two levels.
One, I’m extremely competitive.
Two, I love the process of learning something and getting very good at it.
This principle is helpful for many things in life, but writing is definitely one of them.
Instead of being focused on becoming successful and famous, which is like saying, “focus on winning the lottery,” your mind can find the feeling of success as you get really REALLY flippin good at writing.
If you get so good at it that everything you write turns into gold, it’s more than likely you’ll find some success along with it, but it’s not to be expected, because after all, that’s the point of the trick.
For most projects that we want to accomplish, we need to learn how to break down the project into small parts. This way we get it done little by little instead of looking at a work in progress as some big scary thing that is daunting and that will, “NEVER EVER END!”
By breaking it down, each part seems more doable and there is a sense of accomplishment with every piece we complete. That very feeling of accomplishment you feel with each piece expounds the way you can feel about a project overall.
You’ll more than likely find that you enjoy projects more if they are broken down as you will feel exponentially more rewarding feelings along the way to completion.
This is why there is so much writing advice about “writing daily.” Is not just cliché, it’s how people finish projects.
Most people aren’t Stephen King or James Paterson. We aren’t going to crank out a book every couple of months. It’s just unrealistic in our lives.
But if we break down the writing process into small daily tasks then after 6 months to a year we will surprise ourselves by holding the first draft in our hands for the first time. Something will click in your brains like, “holy moly…I can actually do this!”
Try this exercise:
Instead of telling yourself, “I have this 15-page paper to write.”
Tell yourself, “I have to write 100-500 words at 7 AM every day.” 100 to 500 words will take you little to no time, and before you know it you’ll be well on your way to finishing your 15-page “monster” project.
When you realize how easy this makes big projects feel, you’ll want to do it over and over again.
Take a walk.
If you don’t already, you should definitely try this one out.
Talking a walk and imagining your scenes is a great way to get ready to write.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of new great ideas come to your mind easily and you find yourself excited to sit down and write them.
Instead of going to your paper or keyboard, the next time you want to write go walk for a couple minutes first and imagine things and then try to go write.
See if the words don’t fly onto the page.
Read to write.
This is another game-changer.
As soon as we start to read with the intention of writing the world of writing will be reformed for us.
I can’t attest to this more. If I could I’d be screaming it from the rooftops. I might be able to write without reading, but it would be grueling and exhausting.
For me, I don’t even try to write without reading first. I read to write. It’s my process.
If you are stuck in the trap of trying to make your writing perfect before writing anything down this advice will help you A TON.
I cannot stress it enough. Do not try to make any of your writing perfect at first. Just get something down, anything on the page, and then work on editing what you have to make it great.
Hemingway said the first draft of anything is “trash.” (Family-friendly version.)
Stephen King said, “take a “dump” on your page so that you have something to sculpt…” (again paraphrased.)
While blunt and crass, the advice here is sound. I don’t know how many perfectionists (myself included) have become paralyzed and immobilized in writing because they just can’t stand the thought of it not being perfect the first time anything splats into the page.
This is so unrealistic and no successful writer has ever done it (okay that’s a bit far) but rather let’s say, no successful writer has ever expected that their first draft would be perfect, nor would the common advice be to try.
Instead, people like Hemingway and King just throw words onto a page and then edit the mess out of it.
This is the writing process.
Get words on your page. Get your ideas out. Have something to work with. DO NOT stare at a blank page trying to get the perfect sentence out. Just get something out and then change it later if you need to.
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How to Write Characters that are Smarter than You.
Let me assure you, I am not a very intelligent person, but having time to think about what you want to say and then later, being able to go back and edit what you have written down gives you plenty of time to come up with clever ideas and ways of plotting things out.
If you talked to me in person, you’d see how I’m not extremely quick, but more of a thinker, shy, and introverted for the most part.
Knowing this, it is possible to write characters that are smarter than you and more quick-witted than you may be perceived to be.
Make them quick-witted.
People that are fast talkers appear to others to be more intelligent and have faster working minds. More often than not they are more intelligent on a certain level, but have you ever had that moment where you had an exchange with someone and later you kept playing the moment over and over again in your mind until suddenly something occurred to you and then you shouted out loud, “that’s what I should have said!” (Usually in a busy grocery store and everyone gawks at you for a second…no? Just me? Oh well, figures… XD)
Yes, the old “that’s what I should have said” moment that constantly plagues us slow people (Oh, how I know the sting of its blade well.) Well, your character that’s smarter than you are doesn’t have to feel the sting or burden of that moment…ever.
Instead, you can create the conversation and then have them say what you thought of later and to the reader they will appear to be a quick-witted character even though you may not feel like a quick-witted person yourself.
Try this exercise:
Think of a conversation you had recently. It doesn’t have to be an argument, it could be romantic in nature, or be to a close friend. But you felt you said the wrong thing and later thought of something better to say, or that you wished you would have said.
Put your fictional character in that same conversation and have them say the right thing that you didn’t think of in the moment and then write what happens next because they said the right thing.
Even with this short little exercise, you can start to see how you can write a quick-witted character and change their reality because of their quick wit.
Characters that show quick-wit appear more intelligent to the audience, especially if you can creatively show that quick wit in action.
In the information world, we exist in, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that you should try to fake or make up facts about a subject unless it’s WAY over everyone’s heads.
But in reality, it should be fairly easy for you to look up information about just any subject.
If you want your character to be a physics wizard just make sure to look up normal physics terms and include a few fun facts that no one knows except the professionals and viola, your character seems to know more about physics than you do (and most people, for that matter.)
What’s funny is this type of research will actually make you a more well-rounded intelligent person just by looking up stuff for your character to know.
Unfortunately, the phrase, “use it or lose it,” applies here. If you don’t remind yourself of the information from time to time and move on to other subjects you will most likely forget most of what you learned.
But a good writing habit to practice is to tell people you talk to the fun facts you’re learning so that they stick with you long enough to be able to recall them while you need them. (And perhaps at a few hangouts too, just for fun.)
Take notes and learn how you best organize them for later reference.
When you are thinking of your character and what you want them to know about, taking notes for later use will be extremely necessary.
There is a saying, “the pencil is sharper than the mind.” This just means that anything you write down to remember you’ll have for quick later use, but if you just read and then try to remember, most likely, you will not be able to recall the facts you need to add to your character’s intelligence.
You most likely won’t memorize everything you read so you’ll want to have it written down to look back to later when you are actually writing.
It is helpful to pick out some fun interesting facts as well as common jargon to throw in for your character to rattle off as if it was no-brainer information for them to easily recall off the cuff.
Try to have your notes organized so that you’re not deep-diving through pages and pages of scribbles for hours trying to find something specific you wrote down earlier.
Do not talk about their intelligence unless you are going to show their intelligence.
We can’t just have a narrator or characters talk about the intelligence of any one character.
If it’s brought up in dialogue, it needs to be a teaser of what’s to come.
If you say it, the reader will be looking forward to seeing it in action. That’s part of the fun of reading intelligent characters, seeing intelligence in action.
So if you say that your character is a Grandmaster at chess, at some point in the story chess needs to be a part of the plot and your character better be able to put their money where your writing was.
Don’t just talk about your character’s intelligence. Show their intelligence.
By default, your main character is the most intelligent person in the room because they are a creation of you and you know or come up with how to solve the problems you create.
Since you know how to solve the problem, you can creatively show how your main character figures it out using “their” intelligence. You might not have had said knowledge before you began writing the story, but to the reader, your character already possessed it or knew how to find it.
Keep the character intelligent unless there’s a point to them making dumb choices.
Often times in depictions of Sherlock, they make him extremely intelligent in one area of life but extremely dumb in social awareness.
There is a point to this, and we like it and get it as an audience.
Knowing this, don’t make the mistake of making your character intelligent but then having them making dumb choices that don’t feel in continuance with the intelligence level you’ve led us to believe they already possess.
Continuity is very important.
For instance, if they have the knowledge to disarm a bomb but can’t figure out how to rewire a plug in their home this makes no sense for their type of intelligence.
If they can disarm a bomb but can’t figure out how to win at poker and keep gambling their money away this is an acceptable intelligence difference.
Let’s do another example:
The character is the best psychologist in the world. They can see anyone’s emotional psyche problem and have the answer pop into their head without batting an eyelash. On the other hand they forgot their spouses birthday for the 3rd year in a row because they were busy thinking about work. This makes sense.
Now, on the other hand, if you’re trying to write humor you could do something like this:
They are the most world-renowned psychologist, but they can’t figure out their family or their own psychological problems this can be good irony, because it doesn’t add up.
So it really depends on what type of story and genre you’re going for with this tip.
Serious needs continuity. Humor could use the irony. (I can disarm a bomb in 60 seconds and save hundreds of lives, but I keep short circuting the lights in my living room 😂.)
Tweet- Your intelligent character can’t be intelligent and dumb about their professional subject. If they make mistakes that are important to your plot it should be a mistake in a different area of expertise unless we’ve been with the character a long time. Only then is it okay for them to make a stupid mistake. Who doesn’t make a stupid mistake every now and again?
Read good examples of intelligent characters written well.
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to rethink what it means for you to watch and read intelligent characters. When you see an intelligent character in action using their smarts, stop and think about what the author did in that moment to find that knowledge so that the character could recall it from memory.
Sometimes authors are making stuff up and depending on the subject this can be done a little, but for the most part, we should be throwing in real facts. In my opinion, that’s much more enjoyable for the audience.
It makes us feel like we are having fun and learning something. This is a very powerful combination if we can give that feeling to our readers.
Try this exercise:
The next time you are reading or watching something and the character displays intelligence in a way beyond you, pause for a moment and go look up that information. See how long it takes you to find that exact fact they recalled from memory.
That’s how long it will take you to give your intelligent character that same fact.
Don’t be afraid of research. Use it to your advantage. It is not a fraud or a “hack” thing to do.
In fact, I heard a story recently that Andy Weir, author of The Martian, was asked at a public talk how he came to know so much about space engineering and the inner workings of NASA. His answer:
Google.
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Sometimes when writing we start to notice too many pronouns:
He said, she said, she feels, she thought…
It starts to get annoying for us as the writer and perhaps it can certainly become distracting for the reader.
Try these tips to cut back on pronouns.
Things can be described without she and he.
She saw the satellite above her.
Instead: The satellite was overhead.
She smelled sewage nearby.
Instead: The smell of sewage couldn’t be ignored. It was nauseating.
She felt upset but didn’t know why.
Instead: The situation was upsetting, but not that problematic.
You don’t have to avoid pronouns altogether. You can also use the character’s name to help, but it does take work and practice to create the scene and not distract your reader with too many pronouns.
Try to avoid using “I” too much at the beginning of sentences in 1st person writings.
I went over to the sink.
Instead: Moving over to the sink and grabbing a glass I filled it with the brown water.
I felt my guts churning.
Instead: If you had been standing in that room with me you could hear my guts churning they were so loud.
I thought about Jordan.
Instead: Thoughts of Jordan kept running unchecked.
“I” is another pronoun you’ll want to be creative about cutting out.
When you do stop using “I” so much, your writing will be richer and you’ll notice the difference.
Focus on what the reader feels and sees and you’re headed in the right direction.
She saw the stars brightly that night.
Instead: The sky was clear that night. The stars were brilliant, like a million diamonds in a dark shop. They were so clear Miranda instinctively reached out to grab one. Something strange happened next that is difficult to explain, but I will try. When Miranda reached out her little finger it touched what felt like a warm stone with static. She jumped back. Then reaching out again she grabbed one. It continued to be ever warm with only a little static in her hand. Squinting and barely able to look she peeked down at what looked to be the most brilliant diamond to have ever touched the atmosphere of the earth. Miranda just stared at it for what seemed like hours but she couldn’t tell you to this day how much time actually transpired.
This could use an edit or two, but hopefully, you’ll see that when we get lazy and just use pronouns and tell the reader what’s happening without trying to help them imagine it and feel it for themselves with words that describe what you see and feel on a daily basis, we are robbing ourselves and our readers of vivid imagery that add to a story.
You won’t be able to avoid every single pronoun. Neither should you try to.
It’s almost inevitable that you will run into sentences that are almost impossible to take all the pronouns out of.
The real point is to avoid overuse. It’s not distracting to have pronouns. It’s distracting when we use the same one over and over in the same scene, paragraph, or chapter.
She said she didn’t want to see me. I get this but I don’t understand why and I want her to tell me so I’m not wondering.
Instead: Clara wouldn’t even look in my direction. Sitting in the same classroom didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t tell you how frustrating that was. No, frustration would be an understatement. Seething would be a better word. Day after day I had sacrificed everything in my life for her, and here we sat in Chemistry and she wouldn’t even bring her eyes to meet mine.
Let’s try again:
Clara wouldn’t even look in my direction. Sitting in the same classroom didn’t mean anything. There are no words to describe how frustrating that was. No, the word frustration is even an understatement. Seething would be a better word. Day after day, sacrifice after sacrifice there was nothing I withheld from that girl, and here sitting in Chemistry, nothing, no otherworldly power could force her eyes to meet mine.
You can look at this and see even a few more ways to get rid of more pronouns.
I even see a few, but I actually, personally like the way some of the pronouns help bring the feelings I want from the description.
This is a personal thing, getting to a place where you, the writer, want it to be.
I think some authors would say you should remove as many pronouns as possible, but for me, it’s not about “the rules.” It’s about making the reader able to see and feel what I want them to from the writing.
The point is, you want to be able to get rid of any distractions, but in my personal opinion, you don’t have to go overboard and take out every single pronoun.
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5 Powerful Words that Express Unhappiness + Writing Prompts
1. Sorrow
Sorrow upon sorrow and all was lost. But was it? Was it really all a loss? Was there nothing gained? No silver lining to the last few hours of time?
2. Gloom
“He was so pessimistic. All I ever heard come out of his mouth was gloom and doom. I don’t think anyone could have cheered him up.”
3. Melancholy
“If I had to describe her personality I’d say eighty percent dramatic and twenty percent melancholy.”
“Sounds like you. I think you’re just describing yourself.”
4. Regret
“I don’t have but one single regret.”
“What’s that?”
“I should’ve ordered strawberry instead of vanilla.”
“That’s your only regret in life?”
“My life is pretty good.”
5. Woe
“Woe to everyone who does not obey these commands of mine. They will be like people that built their house upon the sand and when the rain came, the house collapsed because it had no foundation.”
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5 Powerful Words that Express Unhappiness + Writing Prompts
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5 Powerful Words that Express Unhappiness + 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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Writing Inspiration: How to Find Inspiration to Write From Your Life
Finding inspiration to write can be tough, but finding writing inspiration can be easier than we make it. One of the greatest tricks an author has in their bag is the ability to draw inspiration to write from real life and write that into an interesting story.
Someone might say “my life isn’t interesting. I have nothing to write about.”
Successful authors would argue that thought and would say that you just have to be observant and creative to find writing inspiration in your life.
For example, right now we are all locked up in our homes watching Netflix, trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.
How can you find writing inspiration in that scenario?
Some think this is very boring, but not for us writers. For we have alternate worlds in our minds just waiting to be explored in our writing.
Say I have a character who is living a normal life and then boom, one day a virus pandemic hits the world. I can write about restaurants closing, about government officials mandating in-home orders. People that are out past curfew get tickets and arrested.
Protests start happening and then riots, and then without warning people start disappearing. Just individuals at first but then entire neighborhoods without a trace.
But why???!
And that’s exactly my point is that a little scenario like this is exactly what writers use to create interesting stories.
That’s one of the beautiful things about fiction writing. You don’t have to write inside the box.
Life is more interesting than most people realize and there is writing inspiration all around us. You just have to be observant and take mental notes. Then come up with creative ways to make it into a story, and it does not just come from world events.
Add a few Characters, some problems they face and then bam you have a story outline that just needs to be filled in.
So what if there is no pandemic and life is more normal?
Where do you find writing inspiration then?
Writing from what we know will always be powerful because for someone else it’s either what they know too and it resonates with them or is what they don’t know so it’s interesting to get an inside look.
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Writing Inspiration: How to Find Inspiration to Write From Your Life
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Writing Inspiration: How to Find Inspiration to Write From Your Life
Let’s say you grew up in the country.
Most of your neighbors are 100 yards or more away.
The days are nice and peaceful and you can ride your bike around and play with the other neighbor kids.
Then one day someone moves into a new house.
They build it and they are there. You know someone has moved in but you never see them or anyone coming or going from the house.
One night you get thirsty and go to the kitchen for a drink and you notice flashlights around the new house and then you hear a helicopter.
You think it’s police but as you look more closely you realize it’s not the police.
Who is it?
Who’s the neighbor?
Why is there a helicopter and people running around with flashlights?
What’s going on?
You can find writing inspiration anywhere and the key secret is…starting with normal life is actually an amazing place to start.
You can make a story about any walk of life you just have to put in some real-life experience, research, and then be creative.
And whatever it is it doesn’t have to be perfect or great.
You can write a short story and scrap it later, just try to write it anyway because that’s how we get better at it.
The first draft of anything is usually trash anyway if it’s really going to be a project you believe in and want to promote you’re going to have to spend time editing it and you can’t edit anything you haven’t written in full.
So find ways to take your real-life experience and weave it into your stories.
Write from what you know.
Write from what you find interesting to research or read.
Write from your hobbies and passions and that will be interesting to others like you and others that don’t know anything about what you know well about.
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Mythical Creatures | 7 Tips on How to Write Mythical Creatures
Mythical creatures are fantastic and fascinating. It is almost always enjoyable to read about mythical creatures or to see mythical creatures like the ones in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
Some mythical creatures roam the forests and the foggy mountains unseen by the majority of mankind while others only exist as greek mythical creatures or fairy tales.
So instead of just showing a mythical creatures list, let’s talk about how to write mythical creatures of our own.
Let’s try to make up a new universe of mythical creatures or our own stories.
Writing mythical creatures from greek and egyptian tales, harry potter, and fantastic beasts is fine, but there is something extremely enjoyable about coming up with brand new mythical creatures that no one has heard of or come up with yet.
Mythical creatures can come in varying shapes, sizes, and power.
They can live anywhere. Your mythical creature could naturally be in the sea, sky, forest, desert, mountain, sewers, wherever.
They also could be good or sinister in nature.
A mythical creature could be beautiful and kind and bringing good things, or they could be grotesque and terrifying and be the stuff of nightmares.
So how does one write a mythical creature and determine what it’s nature will be?
What is our mythical creature’s purpose?
This is key when first coming up with a mythical creature list for your story or just one mythical creature to add to your plot.
Does your character get help from these mythical creatures or does the mythical creature present a challenge to your characters?
When you know what it is there for then you can simply make a it a good mythical creatures or a horrible one.
Some mythical creatures are there for decoration. They don’t have much of a purpose other than to be seen and awed by.
These types of mythical creatures might be more majestic and beautiful in nature or so large and powerful that they merely exist and don’t notice mankind as more than a human notices an ant or germ.
So once you have your purpose for the mythical creatures or creatures in question then you can start to use it for your purposes.
What if my mythical creature is evil?
IF your mythical creature has the purpose of challenging your main characters then it needs to be either hideous and dangerous or it must be colossal enough to really pose an imminent threat.
You can decide what type of danger your characters are suddenly in.
Is it like they just landed in a pit of poisonous vipers? Or did they accidently cross paths with a lion?
Think of your mythical creatures like animals.
Is your mythical creature the main antagonist?
Another option is to have your mythical creature as the main antagonist. This would make it either intelligent like humans or so sinister in its purpose that it creates suspense in its existence.
Some mythical creatures are just challenges or hurdles along the way, but some make it into stories as the creatures that are hunting or stalking our characters day and night.
If your mythical creature is your main antagonist, be sure that it is able to convince your reader that the main characters are in serious danger and that they could die or lose at any moment.
This helps keep the suspense in the story and your reader interested on if the characters will survive.
This is to compare mythical creatures in harry potter where the main antagonist was another wizard to the first maze runner where one of the first main antagonists were the creatures in the maze.
7 Tips on How to Write Mythical Creatures
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What if my mythical creatures are to help the heroines/ heroes in their journey?
Mythical creatures that are helpful usually have important abilities that are just good for one part of the story or return multiple times.
Mythical creature sidekicks.
Some mythical creatures are sidekicks and are in the heroine’s journey for the long run.
Think fantastic beasts. In Newts adventures all kinds of mythical magical creatures aid him and most of them are a pivotal part of his character thus playing a role in his character development and how we see him as an entire person.
If one day we saw him and he had no mythical creature up his sleeve we would feel bad for him as if he had lost a part of himself.
Another great example of mythical creature sidekicks is pegasus and Hercules.
Especially in Disney’s adaptation of Hercules Pegasus a mythical creature is his buddy for life. And pegasus is given a personality and personified.
Disney also did this in the cartoon Mulan with Mushu.
Mythical creature one offs.
Mythical creatures one offs are there for a moment and usually pivotal moments but then we don’t see them very much. They may come and go a little between series, but they aren’t playing a major character type like a sidekick.
For example, the mythical creature phoenix that lived in Dumbledore’s office and aided him in his escape from being arrested by the minister of magic.
Also to be noticed 100% is Buckbeak as a mythical creature from harry potter that was mostly a one off creature.
Buckbeak shows up for several scenes, some are for fun but some are a little more pivotal for the movement of the story.
Buckbeat gives Harry a magical fun ride for us, but later on the gang must save Buckbeak from execution because of draco.
This leads our characters to certain places and times they must be in in order for the story to maintain suspense and interest.
Buckbeak even though a one off becomes an important suspenseful and challenging moment for our protagonist.
Another mention is Percy Jackson. There are many mythical creatures in these stories as they liberally use Greek mythology, but here we will mention the seahorse that they ride to the yacht of their antagonist.
Posiedon sends the horse, but without it Percy and his friends may not have reached their destination in time.
This is a very typical one off mythical creatures as it is literally there for only one purpose: transportation and then it is gone.
Mythical creature plot points.
Dobby. Dobby is one of my personal favorite mythical creatures from the Harry Potter universe.
As a mythical creature he shows up many times in multiple books. He is used by the author to move the plot along. He’s not just a “one off” mythical creature.
At one moment he is trying to save Harry Potter by not allowing him to get back to Hogwarts and at another moment he is saving Harry and his friends from being trapped in a dungeon.
He is an important character that helps the protagonist and moves the plot along in a fun and interesting way.
Conclusion
With these 7 tips, you should be able to write some very important and interesting mythical creatures for your stories.
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How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters
We write our characters.
We think about them at lunch.
We dream about them.
As writers in a weird way we are emotionally connected to the characters we create.
And thus we want our reader to connect with them and interact with them just as we do and have a fondness towards them.
One of the best ways to make your reader not care about them is to wane on and on about specific details about what they look like and what they act like.
We should avoid this.
It’s our job as writers to understand our characters deeply and reveal who they are through actions, inactions, and dialogue.
So how do we make our reader give two hoots about our awesome characters?
Give them something to lose
At any given moment in the story our character needs to be facing some type of conflict whether big or small.
We need to give our reader a reason to follow along as we reveal to them our beloved character.
Give them small things to lose
Some practical ideas of small things they could lose would be:
– An argument with another character
– They left their homework at home
– Forgot to do homework
– The bully steals their homework
– They have a huge zit they can’t hide
– They get to talk to a crush for the first time but forgot to brush their teeth that morning
– They are apprentice to a blacksmith and chipped the knife they were working on
– A thief steals their coin on the way to the market
– They live on a moon colony and they dropped their groceries outside the grocery store
You can see how the setting can be worked around or even used, but these problems they face are mostly small.
They have something to lose but it’s not life and death.
Use little problems like these to lead your character and reader to the big problems and the overarching biggest climatic problem.
As you take your character through little problems your reader will start to feel invested in who your character truly is at heart.
They will start to be concerned for them.
Keep in mind there is a caveat here.
In order for them to care about these characters, the character has to have some redeeming qualities.
They do not have to be perfect. I advise against that. Do not try to make them flawless.
Give them flaws and redeeming qualities.
Give them a strategic main character to follow
In order for them to care about our characters they have to get to know them.
A few ways to let our readers know our characters:
– From the view of the narrator (you can tell them the thoughts and feelings of whoever you want)
– From the view of the main character only (they only ever know what the main character is thinking and feeling)
– From the view of the main party (they get to see inside a band of characters)
So this can really be done anyway you prefer but if we are going to get them to like them and care about them losing stuff then we have to help our reader get to know them through a certain lens.
We can follow one character that interacts with all other characters.
We can follow a group of main players that we know the inner thoughts of and any one of them at any time could have individual moments with side characters.
This doesn’t mean our side characters can’t be interesting or noteworthy.
When Happy Days was in its prime, the directors and producers would specifically introduce new side characters to audiences to see how they would react.
If the reception was good, they would create a new TV show around those firstly side characters.
So you can take a side character and make them stand out as much as you want for as long as you want.
But whoever you decide to have the story play through, make sure your reader can follow a cohesive story line or it might get confusing.
Make your reader aware of your character’s emotional distress
Whether we want to admit it or not we are emotional creatures.
And with that we enjoy watching characters go through emotional rollercoasters just like we do from day to day stress.
How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters
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How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters
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Almost everyone has a past. And most pasts come with regrets.
What are your character’s regrets?
– Worries/ Fears
What is your character worried about?
What does your character’s worries have to do with the main plot line?
– Character Flaws
Like we said earlier, do not make your character perfect.
Give them realistic character flaws that your reader can relate to.
By giving our characters these traits we can seamlessly invite our reader into our characters.
Ideas for character flaws:
– Selfish
– Self-loathing
– Arrogant
– Steals
– Harbors resentment
– Greedy
– Lazy
– Know-it-all
– Show-off
– Etc
Flaws are a good way to lead the reader into the characters emotional distress as their flaws create conflict with other important characters and strangers.
These flaws can lead to hurt and broken relationships and leave room for redemption and second chances.
Turn up the heat
We aren’t talking about romance.
We are talking about taking your characters from the frying pan and into the fire.
You can take your character through many small problems to get your reader to care for them but we also need to put them through even bigger difficult situations.
Ways to make your character’s problems seem big to your reader by creating tension:
– Create a time sensitive event
Nothing creates more tension than setting a timing and telling someone. You have this much time to do this OR ELSE.
In fact a popular TV show was made around this entire premise. Remember 24?
We were just watching Nonstop the other night with Liam Neeson and the entire movie the villains have him wrapped up in time tension.
“Every 20 minutes someone on this plane will die if you don’t give us 150 million dollars.”
It’s worked a million times before and it’ll work again.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use timed tension.
– Use the character’s career or reputation
Nobody wants to lose the respect they’ve earned over years and years of hard work.
Nobody wants to lose the company they’ve built.
We don’t want to lose a high paying career.
These are examples of high stake things that we can use to make our reader worry for our characters. Especially if they are being blackmailed or wrongly accused.
– Hunger Games: survival tension
I just said Hunger Games because it is the epitome of survival tension.
There are many stories that use this form of tension as well.
Put your character into a situation where they have to survive dangerous encounters with people, nature or other beings and you’ll create the nail biting tension you need to make your reader care about your character.
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How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters
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We want our reader to gobble up every page and to always be wondering “what’s next?!”
But how do we know we are writing in such a way that our story will become a coveted “Page Turner?”
How do we know that when our reader talks about our story they’ll say “Oh! I read that! I couldn’t put it down!”
“Couldn’t put it down…” We long to hear those words about our stories that we have mulled over and lived through.
We won’t know for sure until it is in their hands and under their eyes, but there are some writing techniques that can help us write page turners.
Make your reader worry by adding suspense
Suspense is a pivotal skill in creating a page-turner.
Suspense helps the reader feel like something bad is about to happen so they must know what will happen next because it could be a good or bad outcome for the characters involved.
Create suspense by creating a time sensitive event
A time sensitive event could be big or small.
For example, “We need to figure out the code in 60 seconds or the alarm will sound!”
That is a small amount of time and maybe a minor event but it still creates a moment of suspense for your reader.
It creates a moment where they are thinking and feeling, “What is going to happen next?”
Another example, “if we don’t stop him from reaching his destination, he will release the virus on London.”
“How much time do we have?“- classic suspense question
“He’s already on his way. We only have 16 Hours.“
This scenario has more time and more people are at stake but still creates time sensitive suspense.
In order to create real suspense in our reader’s mind the stakes have to be high.
Always make it that characters that the reader cares about will lose big time if they don’t accomplish their goal.
The what if
You can call this the “what if.”
You want your reader to feel the what if:
– “What if they don’t get there in time?!”
– “What if they release the virus?!”
– “What if the bomb goes off?!”
– “What if the alarm goes off?!”
If we can create questions like this in our readers minds, then we are doing our job as writers that create suspense.
Create question marks that you are ABSOLUTELY going to answer at some point
Let’s say we are with Bruce Wayne (Batman, for those living in non comic inhabited caves) and Bruce is with Alfred strolling through his collection of gadgets and he picks up a grenade that is implanted in the core of a real apple.
He says, “Alfred, how did this apple get down there?”
He goes to take a bite.
Alfred stops his hand.
“That’s not an apple sir. That’s a bomb. The apple core is infused with C4 and the detonator is specifically vibration sensitive to it being bitten. After you take a bite you have 15 second to place it before it detonates.”
“Hmmm, they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but in this instance I guess not.”
Now as a reader I’m not assuming this interaction was just to create a silly pun.
I want to see Batman use this apple bomb somewhere, somehow.
As a writer when you bring up a specific item you should be bringing it up for a reason.
Don’t tell your reader how your are going to use it yet.
Make it a “Question mark moment.”
Leave your reader wondering”how is Batman going to use that and when?”
Questions like these (and you should have many of them throughout your story) will give your reader a reason to keep reading.
They will want to pick the book up again after taking a break.
Revisit questions to add to the payoff
In your story you might mention a particular side Character.
They may bump shoulders with your character at the train.
Then later they see them at a coffee shop.
They see them again at a party and exchange words.
At this point you’ve created curiosity in your reader’s mind, “who is this character and why do they keep popping up.”
Now, depending on the genre of your story this could be a new budding romance or a deranged serial killer.
Only you can tell.
9 Tips on How to Write Page-Turning Excitement
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But the more you bring up this person the more your reader will be waiting and longing for you to share why they are there.
We can do this with objects too.
In chapter one Bruce almost bit the apple.
In chapter 3 Robin could be riding in the cockpit and say, “Bruce I’m starving. Did Alfred put anything in here to eat?”
“Yeah” Wayne says, “check the black bag behind your seat.”
There are two black bags behind Robin’s seat. In one he sees a shiny red apple. He grabs it and pulls it to his face. He looks it over and goes in for a bite.
Bruce puts his hand in front of his mouth. “I said the black bag.”
“I did get it out of the black bag!”
“Let me see.”
Robin pulls up the black bag. Bruce looks into it. “Not that one. That’s not an apple.”
“Not an apple?! Well what is it then?”
“It’s a bomb.”
“Oh…” Robin gently puts it back into the bag and sets it slowly behind his seat.
They’re both silent for a moment.
“I’m beginning to think bombs and fruit don’t go well together.”
Again a comic relief moment but not the one, as a reader, that we’re anticipating.
We’ve seen the apple bomb twice now. And both times it almost kills our heroes but we have yet to see it used strategically by Batman (the hero of unbelievable gadgets) in a way that satisfies our gadget lust.
Having multiple moments surrounding an object or person can create more curiosity and thus bigger payoff when things are finally revealed.
Have multiple hooks working for you
In our stories it is necessary to create suspense and curiosity in almost every scene.
We can’t just say, “if the bad guy wins then the world dies,” and expect our reader to be engaged for the entire story without adding additional “hooks” (suspense and curiosity).
Create curiosity and suspense in every scene (well almost every scene)
Most stories have the long question: “Will our heroine beat the bad guy?”
“Will he find true love?”
“Will he solve the murder?”
“Will they survive?”
But along the way we as writers need to create many small questions to be answered too.
“Will she survive the booby trap?”
“Will they get over this argument?”
“Will they survive the affair?”
“Will she lose her business?”
“Will he get fired?”
Smaller questions help lead the reader to answering the Big question.
Bad stuff happens in real life, allow bad stuff to happen to characters
If we want our reader to keep page turning we need to teach them that the threat our character is facing is actually a threat.
How do we teach them that the threat is real?
By allowing bad stuff to happen sometimes.
If nothing bad ever actually happens to our characters we will inevitably teach our reader the wrong lesson: nothing bad ever happens to character therefore I don’t need to be worried about this problem they’re facing. They’ll be fine.
At this point, we’ve almost lost them.
They’ll surely be losing interest soon.
So instead teach them that the problems are real and worth being concerned about by letting bad things happen.
Use other page-turners
A great practice is to think of page-turners you’ve read.
Think of books you just couldn’t put down.
What did the author do that made you want to keep going and never put the book down?
Learn to read books and consume TV and movies critically in order to use the same techniques they used to keep you hooked for every juicy page.
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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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