WRITING TIPS: WHO IS YOUR HERO OR HEROINE?

Are you writing a novel or play without a hero or heroine in mind? Wrong. Many inexperienced writers make this mistake and bunch together a group of lackluster characters with similar dimension who can not keep the reader interested. To keep your reader interested, you need to pick on an interesting human being, not a robot or yo-yo, not even a superior man or woman with the best qualities but no weakness, no, he or she must be three dimensional.
paint him or her favorably but present some hidden weaknesses to the reader. Remember the mighty and all strong Samson and how Delilah took him down, remember the all powerful King David and how lust could not keep him focused. If the bible can have such three dimensional characters, why should you present superior beings with no flaws? if your character is too good to be true, your reader will lose interest, but if he or she commits terrible mistakes every time like a real human being does, then the reader sympathizes with him or her and stays around to know how he or she handles the mistakes. Bad news is always good news for good news repeated time and again makes everyone lose interest in the news!

WRITING TIPS: WRITING THE BEGINNING OF YOUR NOVEL CAN COME AT THE END!

Yes, you got me right. Writing the beginning of your novel need to come when you are starting the novel. Many a times, we have a great story to tell but don't know how to start. Great writers will start at any point and then when the novel has matured, when it has gained some flesh, they go back and look at how it started. This beginning can be changed many times over until it is as great as it should be.
As a writer, you know better than worry over that start, for worrying often delays an otherwise very important project. I know of a friend, a literature professor who kept working on his novel for 20 years because he couldn't get that magical start. Wrong! None of us is perfect. Start whichever way and write on and when you feel you have that magical touch that is needed, go back and take a fresher look at where you started. However, brooding over the beginning of your novel will delay you for nothing and contribute to what most writers dread, a writers block!
All the best in your novel writing but remember, that great beginning was not always written at the start. Read other writers and you will understand.

WRITING TIPS: THE BEGINNING OF YOUR NOVEL MATTERS A LOT

You may have a great story to tell but your novel may not interest many readers because of one thing, the beginning! You need to have a strong beginning to capture your readers' interest. Those of your readers who like the start and subsequently read the whole story, will want to read many more novels from your pen.

Look at how past master novelists began their novels. Learn how they plunged into their story straight away in order to draw in a reader. Think of how Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy begins or Charles Dickens' A tale of Two Cities. Weren't they brilliant? Reading these great masters and learning the secrets of how a novel ought to begin can greatly help young writers.
I normally follow the advice of a great professor who asked his writing class to consider cutting the first page of their essays in order to excite the reader and keep him glued and it works like magic!