WRITING TIPS: VOCABULARY DILEMMA

Most writers grapple with this issue almost on a daily basis. The issue surrounds whether to use tough sounding words or go for simpler words that are well understood by majority of readers. To answer the question I will try to go back to the sole purpose of writing. Why do we write? Who are we writing for?

Writers write in order to communicate. This communication may inform, educate or entertain but the chief aspect is to pass a message across. If you use a language that will not be understood by majority of readers, then you end up failing in your sole responsibility as a writer and that is why writers need to always go for words that can be easily understood.
Wrongly using or misusing high sounding words that may mean nothing in the end present a writer as stupid instead of helping him or her to appear academic.
Closely knit with the issue of vocabulary is the audience you are writing for. Tough may mean a different thing to kindergarten students compared to university professors! Good luck!

WRITING TIPS: WRITE IN THIRD PERSON FOR GREATER EFFECT

Forget your experiences for a while and just write in third person. Sticking to first person narration has a way of limiting your point of view and that of the reader when you should be able to cover much more ground by playing God.
When you write in third person, you have everything that is happening before you. you have the freedom to manipulate everybody and everything that is happening. Sometimes the way the story turns surprises you the writer just like it would your reader and its this surprise, its these twists and turns that help to glue the reader along.
The element of surprise and therefore suspense disappears once you put yourself at the center of the story and may actually build some negativity in the mind of the reader before he or she completes the story.
When the lead character in your story or novel does not have the best of behavior or is an outright crook that you created, telling his story in first narration may actually crucify you the writer instead since readers have a problem divorcing the writer from the narrator in first person.
I don't deny the fact that some great stories have been written in the first person but as a caution, they are very few and limited as well in scope. To avoid much problems, write in the third person until your experience is bold enough to warrant a shift to the first person.

WRITING TIPS: PLOTTING AND SUBPLOTTING YOUR NOVEL

A novel should have at least one major storyline known as the plot. The plot can be simple and liner or more complex and intertwined with other smaller stories known as sub plots. Complexity of the plot depends on the readership a writer expects to gain, or his or her target market.

Writers who target children or the youth must have very simple and therefore linear plots woven around a main character, the protagonist and another main character, the antagonist who stands in the way of the antagonist’s success. Such story lines targeted at younger readers must have a limited number of supporting characters.
Writers targeting advanced readers have greater control over their storyline and can afford more complex non linear plots, sub plots and a large number of characters. Novels such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky have hundreds of characters almost competing with real life town life.
How then should the writer go about this? Identify your target readers, pick on your main characters, and plot your story outline, first in a linear manner before introducing any twists and turns.

WRITING TIPS: TELL IT A DIFFERENT WAY

Many writers tend to assume that their is nothing new left to write and therefore tend to regurgitate the same old story lines. Well, its time to tell your story in a different way or write that article in a brand new perspective.

Are you one of those fiction writers or screen writers who always paint that villain, that bad guy as ugly, weaker, lacking in anything positive while your hero, the good guy has every positive trait one can ever think of and no weakness at all? Try having a very ugly hero and a handsome villain for once. This trick works like magic and can actually help to keep the reader suspended and therefore interested in your story till the end.
Avoid the stereotypes that many writers commit and forge your way against the current. Heaven with all its attributes must for once be painted as ugly and lacking in any luster while hell offers that irresistible charm and sense of attraction. Isn't this what realism is all about? Try it.

WRITING TIPS: NEVER PICK ON MEDIOCRE MAIN CHARACTERS

A mediocre main character for your short story or novel is like a dim spotlight guiding a lost convoy through the jungle. Readers are never attracted to such fellows, making your writing hard to please even the most committed of readers.

Pick an exciting entity, a strong man or woman who will propel your story forward and tag the reader along. A main character or hero who will not disappoint the reader but will make him or her look at life in a brand new way. Your hero must inspire, he must teach your reader to appreciate life, he must help your reader grow and become a new person, and that is why he or she must never ever, be mediocre for mediocrity smells of nothing but failure.
If the main character is a failure, do not expect any of the other strengths in your story to show for short stories and novels are wound around one or two major characters!

WRITING TIPS: JUST HOW MANY CHAPTERS SHOULD A NOVEL HAVE?

This is perhaps one of the questions that young writers ask themselves time and again. When writing a book, some young writers are tempted to divide it into same length chapters in search of far fetched unity of form. Is this right? Of course not.

A chapter must have a unifying factor, it must be based on a particular Idea that holds the sentence and paragraphs that make it one. Do not force your chapters to have the same length or structure. Focus instead on the ideas that make up your work. Divide your set of ideas into book sections and further subdivide these into smaller sets of ideas that can cover less than ten pages.
Having very long chapters upwards of 20 pages is actually detrimental for an average reader tires quickly and may not want to hold onto the book longer. What does that mean? He or she will never buy a novel or book written by you again, the last thing you need.
It is better to have 100 chapters of three pages each rather than 3 chapters of 100 pages each or 6 chapters of 50 pages each. The more the chapters your book contains the better, but for goodness sake, keep them short!

WRITING TIPS: SUSPENSE IS THE KEY TO READER INVOLVEMENT

Fiction writing hugely depends on suspense to hold the reader until the end. Suspense is what makes a reader hang on to read through one hundred, one thousand or even ten thousand pages of fiction. How can you ensure that your reader is kept suspended?

Its as simple as throwing challenges at the main character. You must make your hero suffer, but he or she shouldn't suffer for too long before resolving the conflict pinning him or her down. To keep the reader interested, throw one conflict after the other into the mix. Resolve these smaller conflicts while making sure that a larger conflict runs through the entire novel until the end.
Suspense is the key and if well handled will keep your reader sleepless until he or she turns the last page.
Not only will your reader finish your latest work but he or she will go in search of the rest from the market. Ask the likes of Danielle Steel, Sidney Sheldon and Dean Koontz. The all dwell on suspense and nothing else.

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.