Archive for the ‘Writing Tips’ Category

How long should an online article be?

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

We live in a age where everyone wants instant gratification. If you can not provide a reason to read on in the first few paragraphs, then chances are your reader will loose interest and move on to something that is more interesting to them.

The Internet is a huge place, with uncounted writing opportunities, so it is only natural to wonder just what the ideal length of an online article is. As a general rule online articles should be kept to an average length of 300 to 500 words, with some leeway for shorter or longer works depending on the topic.

Why 300 to 500 words? Quite simply because it is long enough to actually say something about the subject you are writing about, and brief enough that your reader can read it in just a few minutes. This is by no means a hard and fast rule, since online discussions have proven that even those who are writing articles for websites have a difference of opinion on how long an article should be. 250 to 11,000 words, less, more… It all focuses around one general rule. Write how much you need to write to inform the reader, no more.

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Don’t Stereotype Your Characters

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

When you are writing a story, you want to create unique characters for it, not cookie cutter stereotyped characters.

Don’t create a dark shadowy figure that lurks in the shadows of an alley. Create a real character that watches your hero from the gloomy depths of the alleyway.

Rather than a busty blond or nondescript brunette taking your hero’s order in the cafe, maybe their order is taken by a young man that has traces of grease under his fingernails from his second job as a mechanic.

A danger zone is in too much detail, however, which can be just as bad as a character that is too classic a stereotype. Yes it might be stereotyping to have a meek bespeckled librarian, but just as dangerous is to toss out all of the traits of your stereotypical librarian. There should be aspects of the character that, while not what one might expect from the role, are also universally expected.

For example, a librarian might be different in their body builder physique, but they likely still love books or they would not have become a librarian.

A good exercise is to take a sheet of paper and write the kind of character you are creating at the top. Then draw a line down the middle. On the left write everything you think of when you think of that particular type of person, including and especially stereotypes for them. Then on the right side of the paper write all of the things you need for the character in your story. From these two lists you can create a character that has the traits of both what you need and what you expect, and from that you can create a non-stereotypical character or your story.

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Creating Endearing Characters

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

There are, in the most basic of terms, only two kinds of fictional characters

1) memorable characters that the reader will think about long after they have put the book down and want to read more stories about

and

2) Easily forgotten characters that the reader simply can not bring themselves to care about.

None of us want the type two character, the ones that cause the reader to yawn and set the book aside, or worse, to roll their eyes and throw the book aside.

We want the memorable character. We want the character that has such a sense of reality about them that our reader is able to fully empathize with the character and wants to spend time with them.

How do you achieve that? You make the character as real as possible. You don’t simply decide that you are going to write about a computer nerd that is into conspiracy theories. You create a computer genius who lives in the back room of a bar, is precariously balanced between the sanity of knowing conspiracy theories are for nutcases and believing in them himself. You give him a phobia, a fear of going outside. Then you find out why he has it.

The character I am talking about here is one that my dear friend created years ago, one that came to life for all of us in the writing group. She laid the basic groundwork and handed me the character who then took on a life of his own.

We discovered that he is afraid to go out because when he was a small child his father went out for a walk to the corner store and was shot in a robbery. After that his mother began claiming that there was some kind of conspiracy behind her husband’s death, that he was assassinated.

The life and history of the character unfolded and with it came details about the histories of several other characters in our story world.

Try an exercise. Sit back with a notebook and write your character’s name at the top of the page, then start writing what you find most fascinating about the character and what you think might have caused that to be a part of them.

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Finding the time to write

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Something that plagues almost every writer is finding the time to write. It seems to be something that just kind of slips past without notice, we want to write – yes, in fact if you are anything like me you can not go through a day without writing something, but… how do you find the time?

I find that for me, the best time to get things done is early in the morning, before my dad wakes for the day. This is because once he wakes the television is turned on, and I keep getting distracted by the television and can not focus on what I am doing.

Even waking fifteen minutes early is enough to get in a few minutes of writing during a day. The important thing is not getting perfect writing, it is in getting acceptable writing that can be polished when you are less able to focus on the act of creation.

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