Writing Tips I

I could have used a lot of these when I was a little bit younger. I'm pretty sure you can figure out how to fix a lot in a book if you read a lot of very well-written books.

In no particular order:

Tip 1: Making strong characters. To find out if your book has strong characters or not, have a sibling, friend, or parent read your book, and then ask them what their reaction would be if you made the main character get killed in a sword fight or come to some demise or other. Tell them to be honest. If they tell you that they probably cry or be really mad at the person who killed them, then your characters are very strong and life-like. If they tell you that they wouldn't care much, then you've got a problem (either the reader is heartless, or you have weak and flat characters. But usually it's the second). I still have this problem, and I don't have a particularly good way of fixing it, but the thing I usually try to do is put yourself in your character's shoes. Try to imagine what you would be like in a story, or if the character isn't that like you, imagine a sibling or friend. Or maybe try to descibe their life to the reader, like put some of their background in. Try to really write a good picture of the character.

Tip 2: Lengthening a book. I have that trouble a lot. What I've found best in most cases is put two sides of the story in. I only wrote one of my stories from the perspective of my main character, a teenage girl named Ehra, and the book turned out to be 70 pages. Then I added in the perspectives of some bad guys, and it turned out to be 130 pages! That's a 40 page difference! Also, try to read really long, well written books, like the Inheritance Series by Christopher Paolini. He has a lot of description in his books, and his characters have long lines a lot of the time. Of course, you don't have to go overboard with the long lines, but take these examples. Say this is a part in your book:

"Were you able to solve the riddle?"

"No."

You can lengthen it like this:

"Were you able to solve the riddle?"

"No. We tried really hard, and we thought we came close to cracking the code at least once, but it turned out to be wrong. We even tried using the Caesar Cypher, but we can't find anything. I don't think we'll ever be able to solve it!"

That sounds less abrubt, and you lengthened the line considerably. One of those might not make much of a difference, but if you add in long lines and description several times where it's needed, your book could get longer by a few pages.

Tip 3: Thinking up titles for books and chapters. Some people don't have titles for chapters, but everyone (I'm pretty sure) has a book title :D! This, especially the book titles, can get sort of tricky. I usually have thought up a name for my book by the time I'm done with it, but it's hard sometimes. What I do is I name it after my main character, or where the climax of the book takes place. Brian Jacques, for example, names his books "Martin the Warrior", or "Salamandastron", or "Redwall". Christopher Paolini names his "Eragon" or "Brisinger". Chapters are a bit easier; you can just name them after what takes place during it. Like my most recent chapter of "The Return to Elandai", which is named Captured.

That's all for now. There might be more; that's why this post is named "Writing Tips I"

Izori