Nothing breathes political corruption more than bribery. Whos bribing who and why?
2. Refugees
Refugees are not a flaw. The world’s flaw is what they are seeking refuge from. If they are seeking refuge that means that there is a bigger threat in the land.
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7 Secrets for Writing a Menacing Psychological Suspense Thriller
Check out these tips to help with your suspense thriller.
1. For a Thriller, Make it strange
Give your reader something weird that stands out.
It could be about your character.
It could be about the setting.
It could be about the guy sitting in the corner that never says anything and your main character never noticed them before, but have they been there the whole time?!
2. Keep it to the point
If you feel like you over-explaining, you probably are for a suspenseful thriller.
Make it like the stabbing of a knife in the emotions of your reader.
Sharp and to the point.
It’s not a scalpel and this isn’t surgery. Make clean cuts with your action and your explanations about characters and setting.
You have a suspense moment happening. Don’t lose them on the sunlight and how it drapes over the curtains at noon.
3. Put your main character into a tense setting
Put them in an old abandoned warehouse.
They are out on the lake by themselves when a strange unexpected fog rolls in.
The hotel used to be well managed but now barely anyone actually stays there. I wonder what happened there?
Send your character in there alone to find out.
4. Never promise the reader something you can’t deliver
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7 Secrets for Writing a Menacing Psychological Suspense Thriller
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We hope you enjoyed: 7 Secrets for Writing a Menacing Psychological Suspense Thriller!
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# 5 Leaving chew tobacco spit bottles laying around
# 6 Squeezing acne in public
# 7 Sneezing without covering one’s mouth
# 8 Using an uncleaned cell phone
# 9 Eating food that has fallen on the floor
# 10 Not cleaning the keyboard
Writing Prompts | 10 Distungstingly Gross Bad Habits for Fictional Characters
Write some of your fictional characters with these bad habits in order to make them appear to be a bit gross.
Why you would want to be thinking about bad habits for your fictional characters that you are writing?
Bad habits help your audience resonate with your characters.
They make our characters more believable and more human.
Adding a few bad habits to our characters will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters.
How do these bad habits affect your character’s life?
Do they lose a girlfriend or boyfriend?
Do they lose a job?
Do they get sick?
Do they get a disease?
Do they get a chronic illness? Fungus or infection?
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Do you find them to be inviting? Not open enough? Not raw enough? Not real?
Hopefully, this post will give you some ideas to help you write or change your fictional characters to make them more in-depth for your reader to gobble up.
#1 Be a constant learner
This can’t be stressed enough in any genre of writing.
Learning the art of learning is a skill that every writer and author MUST add to their arsenal of tricks.
Learning is not an innate born talent.
We have to teach ourselves how to learn and how each of us learns best.
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We hear beautiful music and we know how to play it. Or we hear our teacher talking and we retain that information well.
Our friend tells us a story and we can instantly repeat it without missing any details.
#3 Visual
Some of us learn visually by seeing someone do something even if it’s just watching a video.
We see a basketball being dribbled and we know how to start dribbling or we see someone making a meal and we see the ingredients used and we remember how to cook that meal.
For visual learners, watching is a key trick for learning something new.
Visual learners may not be best at first try but by watching a professional they can increase in skill quickly compared to not watching an expert do something.
#4 Be a Characters Reader
Readers learn from reading the instruction manual.
Give me that manual and leave me alone for a couple of hours. I’ll show you how to do it once I’m done.
Read about characters and character development.
Read about not just characters you love, but also ones that you find boring and despise so that you know what kind of characters you don’t want to write about.
#5 Use Real-Life Experience
Some of us learn best from hands-on experience.
“Don’t tell me how to do it. Give me the tools and let me do it already!” we might say.
Use real-life experience to write from and if you don’t have it, interview someone that does and write from their experiences.
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Even though these are some of the major ways people learn we as humans all learn by using each tool for learning and the more you use to learn the more you’ll learn that skill or ability.
So what does this have to do with writing fictional characters?
Fictional characters are the most in-depth amazing when the writer writes from what they know and the better they know it the better the fictional character will be. They jump right off the page.
Your reader will more readily accept the writing and the reader will enjoy reading about how the characters act and think and respond to situations based on the area of expertise we give them.
So if we are writing about a carpenter and we are a visual learner we can watch movies and documentaries and TV about carpentry and carpenters.
If we are a reader we can learn from reading about carpentry.
If by experience then grab some tools and some wood and give it a go.
Anything to be able to write about the actual experiences and decisions that go into the daily life of a carpenter.
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#7 Write about what they experience with their 5 senses.
Write about what they smell as they craft the wood. Does their tool get dull and they smell wood burning?
Write about what the wood feels like. It starts off coarse but gets more smooth as they sand it to a finish.
Do they get a splinter? Do they leave it or do they walk away to get tweezers to pull it out?
Do they experience an accident and need to go to the E.R. to get stitches? Are they in the past and have to use past remedies to deal with the injury?
What sounds do they hear?
What does sawdust taste like when they accidentally get some in their mouths?
P.S.
Whatever it is that your character does, the more you have experienced it the better you will be able to write about it in a way that makes your character more in-depth for your reader.
Use the 5 senses to bring your character to life for your reader.
Try to get the hands-on experience yourself or as close to it.
Talk with people that have done it.
Learn the skill of learning and use that to write amazing in-depth characters
With this type of learning and writing, inspiration will be easy for you and writer’s block won’t be an issue.
Hope this helps!
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I love fiction writing especially and being creative with writing ideas.
Many people nowadays think that in order to make money blogging you have to blog about blogging…boring and nope, you don’t.
Let me tell you why writing on a blog can be much more than that.
Advertisers will pay you for the people that look at your posts.
So if say your passion is music and you want to create a blog around everything music, you can make all your blog post about artists, songs, genres, instruments, throw up some writing and videos.
Writing about the artists’ lives, whatever you want and more than likely others who love music will find your blog interesting and will show up to see what it says and the videos and images you put up.
Then advertisers will pay you because people saw their ads on your site.
It can be fun side hustle money or you can go head first, dive in, and do it full-time. The amount of traffic you can draw is really the limit.
I used music as an example, but anything people are passionate about you can make a blog about and draw traffic to.
Some passion project ideas for you:
Music
Movies
T.V.
Clothes
Cars
Instruments
Viral videos
Video games
Planting
Anything food
Diet
Exercise
Art
Makeup
Costumes
Comics
Womanly Stuff
Manly Stuff
Politics
Money
Marketing
Finance
Stocks
Trade
Travel
Fun activities
Teaching
Photography
Academics
Sports
Antiques
What somethings really worth
Collectibles
Flowers
Gardening
Survival kits
Cleaning
Crafts
Tech Stuff
Nutrition
Etc
You can see even from this non-extensive list that there are many things that people are interested in and as long as you enjoy it and have the desire to learn more about it, then you can write and create blog material about it.
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I write a lot because I enjoy writing, but bloggers can also make videos and do graphics.
People love graphics and videos about topics.
I mostly speak to writers because I’m a writer and it’s what I enjoy and know and enjoy learning more about.
And the other cool thing is you don’t just have to make one blog. If you’re passionate about many topics you can make more blogs about other things you are passionate about and blog about them as well.
Don’t be afraid to experiment
Try many different things as a blogger. The name of the game isn’t just creating great materials. The name of the game is creating and finding out what people like and what they don’t like.
Find out what’s helpful and what is not helpful and give them more material that is helpful for those that are looking for it.
The only way to find out what is helpful is to research and create and see how people react.
Do your best.
The biggest hurdle for success is the fear of failure.
Most people won’t try because they are afraid to fail on the first try. What will people think of them?
Those that move past failures and keep going are often the ones that end up succeeding past the “bumps” in the road. There are tons of stories written like this and we as an audience love them because we love a good story. Good stories aren’t boring and have problems to overcome.
P.S.
If you are passionate about something, you can get paid to be passionate about it as a blogger.
Make videos
Make graphics
Write
Take pictures
Just don’t be afraid to create
Don’t be afraid to experiment
The biggest hurdle for success is not starting because of the fear of failure
Hope this helps!
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How can you know from step one in the writing journey which chapter should take the majority of your attention?
The long and short answer is:
Chapter one is arguably one of our most important chapters.
To go further the first several paragraphs are arguably the most important paragraphs.
Many readers will pick up a book and read the first page just to see if they are interested.
It’s like going on a potential first date.
You see a person and there is an initial attraction.
Then you decide to have a conversation.
Before even going on a first date let alone many dates this first conversation is more pivotal to the potential relationship then the 10th or 11th date.
If this first conversation isn’t pleasant, fun, entertaining, and intriguing then you most likely aren’t going to want to talk to this person again to find out more about them.
Our first chapter is our first conversation with our reader.
We have to hook them from the first pick up of the book or they will set it down and probably never think of it again.
Think about how many times you’ve been at Barnes and Noble or browsing on amazon and you downloaded a sample or picked up a book, read the first couple paragraphs to see how the book makes you feel.
You have no idea that chapters 5 or 6 could be the most entertaining chapters you’ve ever read in your life but it doesn’t matterbecause the first few paragraphs don’t “convince” you that this book is worth finding out about.
You’ll never make it past chapter one.
Some people still browse at book stores but we’re going to assume that a lot of authors will self-publish on amazon and that samples will be your first conversation with your reader.
This is actually a great free way to market your stories because lots of potential readers are downloading free samples to see if books are interesting.
Use this to your advantage knowing how much of your book they will get to sample by creating an amazing hook within your sample.
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You ever meet someone and they talk talk talk talk talk talk?
You never get to say a word and honestly, you are looking for an opportunity to end the conversation and walk away.
The reason for this is that this person isn’t being interested in you and what you like they are being interested in them and what they want to say. This makes them work for you and not much fun to be around.
We can do the same thing to our reader.
But how do we listen to a reader as writers?
Simple, when you write put yourself into your reader’s shoes.
Think about what they want and how they want it delivered to them.
Don’t just think about what you want to say and how you want to say it.
Don’t make it work for your reader.
Just like in a first conversation you don’t want to drop a ton of information on the reader in your first paragraphs without some type of fun reward.
Don’t spend your first 5 paragraphs describing the building and city your main character is in before even giving your reader some dialogue or some characters they can start to imagine and get to know.
Listen more than you talk.
Create curiosity right away by dropping them into the arena with the main characters in trouble sooner rather than later so that the reader knows they are getting something good.
Put the reader right in the middle of two characters’ dialogue about planning a murder on page one so they are curious right from the start.
Make them naturally want to know about who and why?
Write into a scene where two brothers are sword fighting to the death over a woman in medieval times.
Create a hook right away and don’t bore your reader with a bunch of facts right off at the start so they can have something to look forward to and want to go on that first date to find out more in chapter two.
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Some people are introverts and some extroverts and there are definitely some in-betweens but for the most part, humans are in general a little curious about one another.
In your first chapter give them 1-3 characters they can start to watch and get to know.
Don’t over-explain any of these characters at first.
Reveal their personality over time and give quick physical descriptions of the ones you choose to describe.
Do not spend several paragraphs describing any one character physically in your first chapter, or maybe any chapter for that matter.
Take your time revealing any character’s personality, beliefs, and choices.
Less is more when it comes to most physical descriptions. Get it in precisely and be done with it. Allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks.
“He had dark skin, long brown hair and an eye patch covering an eye with a big scar around it.”
Try to be precise and don’t overdo it.
Later you can give away more things about their look or demeanor as they get to know the character.
“She hadn’t noticed it until now, but he walked with a slight limp.”
“He removed his shirt to jump into the river and for the first time she saw that his back was covered in scars. He saw her staring.
“I was a prisoner in Rome for two days. It was just enough time for them to do this to me. I’ll never set foot in Rome again till Caeser is dead.””
Keep in mind that as you do this type of revealing slowly the reader will get enjoyment out of looking forward to further revealing. This helps move along in your story and want more, rather than being bored and wanting less.
In conclusion:
Consider the first paragraphs extremely important
The first chapter of utmost importance
Give your reader a character to follow and know right away
Give your reader a major problem or question to be curious about right away
We hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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So you dream of being a writer now what? 5 Practical Thoughts If You Want To Get Paid To Write
If you don’t treat writing like it’s your job now, then it never will be.
In order to get paid to write we need to be disciplined and passionate.
Get paid to write:
#1 To get paid to write we have to finish what we start
Hard truth: Writers get paid to write because they finish their writing projects.
I dare say we creatives are all guilty of starting an amazing project only to get bored with it when it becomes REAL WORK and run off to get started on the next fun, shiny item (at least most of us are willing to admit that).
The thing is if we never finish a book we will never be published writers and never get paid to write.
If we never finish a project we will never be freelance writers and if we never finish a blog post and actually hit that beautiful publish button we will never be bloggers.
Sad but true.
Push through, finish the writing project, and get paid to write.
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Doesn’t matter what it is, if we don’t start making a daily goal for ourselves then we may never get paid to write or become proficient and finish any projects and that’s where the dream dies.
Don’t let the dream die.
When you make your daily goals, start small.
Write for 10 minutes a day, not an hour
100 words a day vs 1000 words a day
Read a page for inspiration, not a whole chapter
Create one post today, not 10
Work on the project for an hour before lunch, not 8 hours before lunch.
Etc
You know yourself so don’t let us stop you from trying to do more, but as a general rule starting small means getting more done in the long run.
If you don’t start somewhere, you’ll never start and you’ll never get paid to write.
If you try to take on more than you can handle then you’ll dread doing it and nothing will get started.
100 words a day may seem small, but 100 is better than 0 words a day.
And more often than not if you start with such a small goal in mind then when you actually sit down to write you’ll quickly find yourself writing more than 100 words at a time.
Sometimes just sitting down and actually starting is the hardest part.
It’s like jumping off a ledge. There’s nothing to do but do it.
Also, create LONG TERM goals. Above ^ are just examples of daily goals and starting small. But long term goals make a big difference too.
This year I want to create a blog (See here if that’s you)
This year I want to start freelance writing
This year I want to finish my book
This year I want to quit my job so I can get paid to write full time
These are all good writing goals for people that love to write, but they must be broken down into smaller daily goals or they might never happen.
Create your daily small goals with your long term End Game? goals in mind.
#3 Let the process change you
We either build good habits or bad habits. There’s little in between. But it can be subjective
Writing for some is a good habit.
For humans dreaming of being writers, paid writers it’s a MUST habit.
But don’t just do it to write, enjoy the process.
Don’t ever lose the enjoyment of letting words roll onto the page.
It helps with focus.
It helps with clarity.
Thinking is one thing, but seeing our words on a page and then being able to shape the sentences in revision into one entity helps us map out deep concepts that can translate well into other areas of our lives.
If you can take a character through a trauma maybe you can figure out how to help yourself and others deal with some trauma as well.
Being able to see things from the bigger picture vantage point helps bring clarity to the smaller scenes.
#4 Being published is much harder than just writing for fun
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If your dream is to be a published writer we think that’s great, but we want it to be known that being published isn’t some sitting on the beach sipping pina colada’s job. It is a job. And it is work.
For some, it is a more enjoyable work, but for the unexpecting, it could be quite stressful.
And we don’t want you to be stressed. We want you to be prepared and educated 🙂 ready to dive into any challenge that may come your way being a published writer.
Being published means serious deadlines.
And serious deadlines mean elbow grease and sweat.
To get paid to write books as a published writer means seriously writing and revising every day.
A writer has all the time in the world to work on a story…until they are published.
After being published, professional writers are expected to meet strict deadlines and they are expected to create additional books in less time than they did create their first books when they were not yet published.
When you’re not published, nobody is waiting for you to finish anything.
When you’re publishing an entire company is waiting for you to hand them a completely finished and polished book ready to be sent out to market.
Thankfully in today’s publishing world, you can be self-published through market places like Amazon.
This doesn’t mean your book would be advertised like a publisher does, but it does mean you have more time to work on it and potentially earn more from it if you publish it yourself and the publishing company isn’t taking out a big chunk.
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One of the greatest and hardest skills in life is learning how and what to say no to.
Not just in writing but in all areas and seasons of life.
None of us enjoy disappointing other humans, especially humans that we care about. So learning what to say no to so you actually have time to write and do things that are important is a tough daily challenge.
Learning how to chunk out time out of our busy day, every day, to say no to everything else is tough to do.
Being able to take time to write, can be a daunting task depending on what prior commitments we already have.
Spouse
Kids
Job
School
Pets
Family
Friends
Etc
You name it, everyone has commitments.
And we’re not saying to give any of them up, but it’s time to cut 10 minutes out of the day to write and more than likely that 10 minutes may have to be taken out of movies, video games, T.V., and Netflix time (Say it ain’t so!)
Tis true. A fair amount of us wouldn’t want to admit, but our leisure time, whatever that may be personally, might be taking up too much of our time if we seriously want to get paid to write.
If you can’t find just 10 minutes in your day to write or at least put down 100 words on the page a day, maybe writing isn’t actually what you want to be doing anyway 🙂
If you enjoy 5 Practical Thoughts If You Want To Get Paid To Write and writing fiction, 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)?
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If you enjoy 5 Practical Thoughts If You Want To Get Paid To Write and writing fiction, 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 🙂
The beginning of our stories is crucial. It’s the appetizer for the entire dish. If it’s not tasty, chances are the rest of the meal will have the same bland flavor.
And nobody wants to spend their time reading a bland blah story.
The beginning of your story must be engaging, intriguing, and packed with a punch.
BUT the first page, sentence or even word can be the most agonizing part of the writing process because there is so much riding on it.
But there’s no need to worry.
Relax and let these 3 methods aid you in starting your story so that the reader is hooked from page one.
#1 Start somewhere in the middle.
Though you might not know where to begin, or even how you want your story to end, you may have certain scenes already in your mind.
Start with that. Start with what you have in your mind and let the story unfold before you and them.
Don’t be afraid to start with what you have. Make your idea a short story first. You can expand on a short story later. Get it written down.
If it’s a great idea your mind will keep toying with it and take it further. If it is a dud, you will most likely forget about it or lose interest.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll write it down today. Forget about it for 3 years and pick it back up and write the next big seller. You just never know.
As you move forward with your story you’ll have a better idea of where to start. And as you mold your characters and thicken your plot, you just might get the inspiration you need for the perfect beginning.
Our stories are going to go through A LOT of editing before they are done, so don’t worry.
There will be many moments along the editing part where parts of the story get changed. And you can always go back and add or take away from the beginning.
Sometimes a story can take an unexpected turn and you decide to start the story in the middle and do flashbacks instead of starting where you thought was going to be your beginning.
The point here is don’t be afraid to start writing down your ideas and start writing the story because you are worried it won’t be good enough.
If you let that fear drive you, you’ll never write anything and rob yourself and the world of another good story.
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Though it may seem a little too binding, starting with the title can actually give you the freedom you need to start your story.
When you pick a title, it will give you the direction that you need to put the pen to the page.
Starting with your title in mind gives you a good heading for the journey of your story.
You know where you are and where you want to be so you can begin sailing.
And while you’re writing you can always have an epiphany and go back and revise the title.
If you didn’t go ahead and make a title at the start you would have to make something up at the end and you’ll have missed out on possible title inspiration along the way.
Another good reason to start with the title is that you’ll be starting with the end in mind.
In most projects, this is a wise system of thinking. Start with the end in mind.
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Though it may seem too obvious, sometimes the best way to start is the easiest way.
This is a very specific method, but it is a tried and true method.
Also, this method is simple and it’s a great way for anyone to start a story even if they end up chopping it out later.
It’s an easy and simple starting point for anyone writing a story.
By starting with an introduction you are introducing a main character and a major problem or question for your reader to be curious about.
For example:
“Hi. My name is Hayden, and I’m here to tell you my story.”
“Hi. I’m Ray, and I’m hiding a secret.”
“I’m Brett, and you won’t believe what I just overheard my teacher say. My life will never be the same again.”
Can you see how easy it was to give our character a name and instantly introduce a curious secret or an interesting life-changing idea?
If we are going to hook our reader we have to be interesting from page one or they’ll never make it to page two.
Don’t make starting a story harder than it has to be.
In conclusion:
remember, these methods are only to help you start the writing process.
You always have the power to rewrite, fix or evolve the story any way you please. So don’t let that first sentence get you down. Instead, go ahead and start, even if you don’t feel it’s the best.
Nothing is set in stone.
Get moving forward and give yourself more to work with than just the paralyzing question of “where to start?!?!”
We hope this short post helps you!
Happy writing!
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If you enjoy Simple Ways to Start Writing a Story and writing fiction, 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)?
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Every story that’s ever been written has moods. Different than the tone, which is set by the author, the moods help set the feeling the reader gets from our story.
The moods of our story can ebb and flow as the plot evolves and our characters develop into who we want them to be for the occasion.
As you are writing your story, carefully consider the way you want your readers to feel during each scene.
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Will they feel it because the mood is set well in a natural way?
Setting the mood is like setting the mood in a room.
A house has many rooms and each room can have its own personal mood.
If we dim the lights and let in natural light and paint the room a light color and set up comfy sofas in the room it might have an uplifting mood.
If we take the exact same room but cover up the windows, paint the room black, throw in a strobe light, some black lights and a bunch of black light glow objects with some bass beats it’ll change the mood for that room dramatically.
Stories are much like houses and chapters are much like rooms.
If you have a chapter with a funeral in it you have most likely created a somber or inquisitive mood for that chapter.
If the chapter has a celebration party from a hard-fought win with no casualties then the mood is more relieved, upbeat, and happy.
Some moods are easy to make and some take more complex thinking to put our reader into the emotions we want them to feel at any given moment.
Use the setting to help set the mood you want them to feel.
We hope this quick list will help spark your creativity for your writing.
Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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If you enjoy 31 Moods to Consider While Writing Stories and writing fiction, 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 🙂
It’s easy to write and even easier to make simple common writing mistakes while you’re writing. Creating checklists is a good way to make our musings effective and efficient.
Writing is fun but sometimes it can be daunting to know where to start.
Making a checklist can be useful.
Use this checklist to help think through fictional characters you are writing.
When writing fictional characters it’s easy to get lost and end up making similar writing mistakes as other authors that didn’t do as well with characterization.
Use this checklist to watch for some common yet potentially grievous writing mistakes.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
1. Stereotypical
Writing mistakes come in all shapes and sizes and writing a stereotypical character is one of them.
It’s easy to say “write original characters” but to actually do it can be tough.
So many characters exist and it is hard to break the mold.
To avoid writing stereotypical characters think about who your character is, if you can think of five other famous fictional characters just like them you may be in the stereotypical realm.
Maybe don’t ditch the character altogether at that point, but do have them do some surprising things.
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Some writers would say every character has to be very useful and usable in more than one way.
We disagree.
I for one have enjoyed immensely certain characters that show up for short cameo blips and only have one use in the entirety of the story.
Think about when Stan Lee would show up in a Marvel movie for a cameo.
His Character wasn’t always useful in many ways but it was enjoyable to see.
So make some characters show up unexpectedly that maybe only one use. This might be just the thing to make the story more dynamic and less predictable.
Sometimes a character shows up just to help accomplish one small piece of the puzzle for the protagonist and then leaves disappears or dies.
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Just like the humans we know and see every day our fictional characters need to have m.o.’s.
M.O. stands for Modus Operandi which just means someone’s habits or methods.
Everyone seems to have an m.o. a way that they do things.
Your character’s m.o. might be too get coffee at 7, read the news at 8, be at work by 8:30 and to be home by 6.
If they get honked at in traffic they honk back.
If someone says hi to them they usually say hi back.
Things like these are considered someone’s M.O. The way they do things.
The mistake to watch out for here is to have your character not have a consistent character.
One day they say hello the next day they scream and run for no apparent reason. The next day they randomly have a different accent and say “Howdy!” for no explained reason.
For most characters, they will keep the same personality over long periods of time just like your friends and family, but for other characters, they will go on a learning journey where habits and other things in their life will change. They may talk a little different or choose to be a better person or a worse person.
They will still be the same person but they can always try to change habits just like normal people do.
Habits people often try to change normally:
Eating
Sleeping
Caffeine
Smoking
Drinking
Drugs
Cell phone use
Etc
Things like these are acceptable for a person to try to change, but remember that readers like the character to be consistent, especially if they have been for a long time and if they change dramatically or too much too quickly a reader might find that hard to believe.
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This is a tragedy because it just isn’t true. Some critics feel that people are sick of the underdog sorry and we just have to say that they aren’t true yet.
It could happen.
It just hasn’t happened yet.
Don’t be deterred from writing a less lined character that rises above everything that’s stood against them:
Authority
Bullies
Teachers
Enemies
Dictators
Tyrants
Mean spirited people
Etc
People still live to root for the underdog because most of us feel a little bit like an underdog on the inside just trying to succeed.
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Our characters must have goals or else our reader will just stop caring at some point in their surmisable pointless journey.
It’s fine t start them out with no seeming point or reason, but the reader is on the lookout for the BIG WHY.
Our BIG WHY is why is our character being written about and talked about.
If the reader never finds a good reason they are likely to put our story down and NEVER pick it up again. They might remember it though…as being horribly boring. 🙁
So don’t do that to yourself or your reader. Give your characters goals 🙂 .
They don’t all have to have the same goals. In fact, it is more interesting if they don’t have the same goals and are against each other is some goals and with each other in others.
For instance, they could be rivals. This means they have the same goal, but against each other.
They could be rivals but have a common enemy. This still makes them have the same goal against each other but for the moment they could benefit from taming up. Very fun.
They could have the same goal and decide to be allies in that goal and work together as partners or friends.
They could have a group of people that become their allies.
They could be secretly pretending to be partners, but scheming to betray each other at the last second when it really counts.
There are many fun and interesting options we can use when it comes to giving characters goals and what that means the conflicts and resolutions of our stories.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
7. Thinking they have to earn everything
Fictional characters don’t have to earn everything we see them have or get.
A prince is a prince and with that we expect them to have certain privileges above other characters.
Nice clothes
Meals
Beds
Hair
Makeup
Weapons
Armor
Etc
If it is a person who is down and out and struggling, we expect to see them struggle through and earn things along the way.
It is okay for us to write some characters having honor, fame, glory and other notions before our reader meets them.
In Harry Potter, he had notoriety he didn’t even earn himself and we as readers accepted this. Ron had less, we also accepted this. This is how the world works, so your reader won’t be expecting you to take them through every event the character has gone through before they started to read about them.
They want to go through the interesting parts of their life journey. That’s why they are reading.
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This seems like a no brainer, but we will cover it briefly and move on.
A story must have a coherent plot.
If it goes off into random tangents our reader may lose interest when they realize there was no point to some side plot in the story. OR worse they’ll get to the end and feel gipped. Then they won’t pick up book two.
A plot skeleton should be kept fairly simple and expand as necessary:
Introduction
Hook
Conflict
Climax
Resolution
This plot skeleton is extremely simple on purpose.
There may be multiple mini conflicts with mini resolutions along the way, but one main conflict and one main resolution make for most great stories.
Don’t run off into meaningless side stories that don’t have anything to do with either creating interest for the main character or the main antagonist or characterization.
Our story is like a river it may bend and it may have reservoirs but in there somewhere it needs to come to a raging waterfall for our reader to plunge down in order to find out where the river ultimately leads.
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Your reader doesn’t need to know the in-depth background of every character that steps onto the page, but for some sidekicks and some secondary characters, a little depth and back story can be quite interesting.
Their backstory doesn’t need to be revealed all at once. In fact, it can be more enjoyable if it doesn’t happen all at once but over many chapters.
A little revealing here and a little revealing there. Keep the reader curious about the right characters. Create questions in their minds. And answer those questions in time.
Be purposeful about what you reveal about any character especially secondary characters. Make sure that it is important to a key point in the plot.
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Nothing ruins a story more than an evil diabolical no-good…boring villain.
An unconvincing villain can ruin an otherwise extremely good story with a great plotline. We could have all the characters and the best storyline and plot, but if the villain or antagonist falls flat it’ll make for a very disappointing reveal sometime in the story.
Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For:
11. Writing mistakes: forcing a part of the story that doesn’t quite fit.
We’ve all been there. You’re thinking through this amazing idea for a storyline. You write a really amazing introduction and some killer plot points. One day you write a scene that is amazing and that you love personally.
As time goes on you keep writing, but that awesome scene that you wrote doesn’t really seem to fit in anywhere.
But it’s an awesome scene and you love it. What happens to it? It can’t just die and never be remembered, can it?
Unfortunately, I think it can. It is sad, but it’s important to just let some things go in the editing process.
If you wrote something you love that doesn’t seem to make sense anymore, don’t try to draw lines to it and from it only to leave the reader scratching their head about it, just put it down in your “I loved you once” scenes journal and let it be.
Don’t make your reader question whether you can put together a coherent storyline all for one scene. It’s not worth it in the long run.
If it makes you feel better you can add a section at the end of your book called “deleted scenes.”
Don’t let writing mistakes get the best of you.
I hope this helps!
Happy Writing!
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Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy Writing Mistakes to Watch Out For and writing fiction, 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 🙂
