Tips for writing?

Question

I am writing an epic fantasy... Any writer tips?

Answer 1

If you haven't got it, get "The Elements of Style" written by Strunk and Williams. It's a great little reference manual that ought to be near as you write.

Another great reference book is Cynthia Laufenberg's, "Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript."

Learn the rudiments of basic punctuation--especially using quotation marks. Keep a dictionary handy. Find a trustworthy writer willing to edit your manuscript as you go along with it.

Here are my Ten Basic Tips for writing:

TEN BASIC WRITING TIPS

The following may be useful for the beginning writer and reminders for those who have written for years:

1. Avoid pretentious words, clichés, and trite expressions in the narrative. Do not put quotation marks around a slang word or a figure of speech that is not being pointed to or emphasized as a word or figure of speech. When in doubt, omit the quotation marks. A careful writer will spare the reader such annoyances.

2. Start a new paragraph for each character’s dialogue. Great Britain and Canada use modified rules, but the American writer should place the closing quotation marks after all punctuation marks except for the semi-colon and colon. The dash is another exception to this rule.

3. Dialogue should be identifiable to each character in the story, but use appropriate tags to let the reader know who is talking. Tags may be omitted if using an action line, such as: Mark glared at Joe; his menacing figure only inches away. “No, man! It’s your doing!”

4. Write the narrative using English in its perfect compositional form, avoiding foreign words unless they are of prime importance. Never use quotation marks for emphasis, but rather, use italics. The dialogue should fit the narrative if included in the same paragraph.

5. It is not necessary to write the character’s written thoughts in italics, but be consistent in whichever form you use. Using italics to denote the inner thoughts of a character is easier to discern.

6. End your chapters or parts with a cliffhanger or something to make the reader turn the page. Build suspense and tension throughout the story and don’t hesitate to write your character in a situational corner. To have everything work out coincidentally nice and conveniently smooth for the characters is laziness on the part of the writer and his imagination. Keep the readers wondering if the protagonist will work himself out of a precarious dilemma.

7. Keep your story within the style you began—either first, second, or third person narrative.

8. Write a good wrap at the ending by serving justice to the antagonists and rewards to the protagonists. There are exceptions to this guideline, however, and it depends on the plot.

9. Keep a grammar reference book and a dictionary nearby. Employ a computer spell check freely as you write. Watch for words such as, their, they’re, whose, who’s, it’s, its. Know their differences.

10. Have your work edited for grammar, punctuation, and flow before submission. Thicken your writing skin; as a writer, you can ill-afford hurt feelings when your manuscript needs improvement.

Answer 2

Tips, in no specific order:

1. Maintain naming conventions. If you call him Arturos in one passage, don't call him Art three passages later....UNLESS other characters are speaking to him.

2. Don't be afraid to use 'said' in dialogue. Your English teacher wants you to use 'questioned' 'asserted' etc, but your readers don't. We don't read 'Bob saids' other than to keep straight who's saying what.

3. Only describe what is absolutely necessary. If you describe to me IN DETAIL every stitch on a bedspread, that thing better be danged important. Describing is good...but only describe what is

a) important for the readers to place your characters in space and time
b) something that matters to the characters that are 'seeing' it
c) something important to the plot in some way, or the milieu being described.

4. Show, don't tell. Don't tell me this guy's a jerk, have him do something that you think is mean. What you think is evil may not be what your reader's think is evil. Let them assign their own moral judgments.

5. If you are describing a character another character sees, that character (unless he's reading his mind) will know nothing beyond physical descriptions or things that by body language or clothing are obvious. Character A will not know any motivations or moods of Character B unless Character B does something to give it away, and unless Character B is famous, A will know nothing of B's history.

6. Always re-read your stuff. Preferably the next day. Write your fill for the day, put it away, do some other things. When you have slept, come read it again...and read it OUT LOUD. You will notice cadence issues you hadn't before, repetitions, things that are simply awkward.

7. Have a proofreader. I don't care how good you think you are, you will screw up. Another set of eyes is always needed. They don't even have to be all that good...people will find things that are glaringly obvious that you cannot see because you wrote it.

That's all for now...I'm sure in the time it took me to write this, other's have answered lots too.

Answer 3

Some good advice above. However don't always denote who just spoke. It can be very monotonous with a huge string of he said, she said, he said, she said. Skip a few if it is clear who is speaking, but always error on being clear.

My big pet peeve is passive verbs, is, are, am, was and so on. Using action verbs is more interesting, more descriptive, and usually shorter and reads smoother.

Also cut the adverbs, choose powerful verbs instead. Not "he ran quickly across the street." but "He sprinted across the street." Do a search on your story, look for "ly" for most adverbs end in "ly."

There are many more points, your really need to buy a good dozen or more books on how to write. I own forty.
.

Answer 4

ya heres some for you.
1. Don't write in English, it is a vulgar, procrastinating tongue with nothing to say; if your going to publish a book write it in German, Norwegian, or Russian. Because people still look at those languages like they were C++
2. When you do get the book out there get a translator to translate it into English so that everybody can read it. Do not publish it in its original script language.
3. If you can write in Latin that's just as good because study artists still use it for logic analysis.

Answer 5

just remember to stay in the same point of view through out the enitre story.