CuteWriting

As writers, we’re always pushing the envelope to express ourselves better than we did before. However there are times when we plateau, when our writing just doesn’t feel natural. Worse yet, there are times when we can’t get a good paragraph out. Those are times when we start thinking about pushing ourselves and our writing. When you need to tweak and boost your writing up a notch, it’s always good to try something constructive.  For those who could use a couple of tips, here are a few that are sure to help improve your writing and keep it from going stale. 1.Imitate Different Authors If you read other writers for inspiration, why not actively imitate their writing? Once you walk in another writer’s shoes for a bit, writing as they write, you get an idea on how to approach writing about things in ways you normally wouldn’t.  Moreover, it will force you to pay attention to what makes someone else’s writing style unique which, in turn, will help you find ways to m...

[A guest post by Nathalie Raben from NYC Midnight] Get those ball points ready to roll with NYC Midnight's 2009 Creative Writing Championships . This flash fiction contest invites writers from all regions to compete against one another in a World Cup-style writing race. For each challenge, writers are placed in different heats and assigned a specific genre and object. They then have a specific amount of time to pen their 1,000 word short stories, which will then go before a panel of esteemed judges in the professional writing world. Feedback will be provided for each story, and winners will be ranked challenge by challenge in a point system that mirrors the World Cup. All participants are competing for a chance to win up to $2,000 in cash and prizes. Devising creative contests in nothing new for NYC Midnight, an organization that derives its' name from the all nighters often associated with creative thinking. Registration for the Creative Writing Challenge closes on Wednes...

Once you start into creative writing and novel publishing, you may have to send many many typescripts to various publishers or literary agents. You need to track these submissions somehow. Keeping a list, spreadsheet, or a notepad of submissions will soon tire you out. Here is a better way. A software program, made just for this task: Sonar Submission Tracker . The important thing to note is this software is completely free. May it be short stories, novels, or novellas, or even articles to article directories or freelancing websites, Sonar can track their progress pretty well. Here is a screenshot of Sonar: Using this program, creating list of submissions and tracking their details is pretty easy. Go ahead and download the app free. If you like it, try more applications from Spacejock, which are all free, and give a tiny donation to the website. You can read my other review about Spacejock writing software, yWriter here .

We haven't been updating about creative writing for some time due to readers' interest in various other topics, and my exploring them further. Here is a revisit to it. We will see why you can be unsuccessful in writing business. Here are eight of the severest mistakes creative writers can do. 1. Not Writing at All If you are a writer, not writing is like not breathing and still looking to live. Most of the time, the writer's block may be the reason why you are not writing. In that case, use my writer's block tips to fight it. But keep writing always, no matter how crappy what you come up with is. 2. Not Reading at All Reading a lot gives you inspiration and words to write further. Refraining from it will simply make your writing stale and uninteresting at the least. At the most, you will simply lose your writing skill. Hence, keep reading without fail. 3. Taking Negative Comments Personally A mistake any budding writer can do. Negative comments always come ...

When you write a story, you will be going through a number of scenes. In novels and novelettes, these scenes shouldn't be undervalued. When cross-referencing scenes, you may miss simple aspects such as the time, characters involved, what exactly happened in the scene, etc. At that time, it is very important to get all attributes of the scene right. For this purpose, you should ideally create profiles for each of your scenes. Here I have some tips for that. Create a scene record as a separate document, with only the details of all scenes. You needn't write the entire scene down; just record the required attributes and if possible, link to the original scene in the story. Here are the things you need to record. 1. The Time Period There are stories that happen in two days' time, and there those that happen in 30 years' time. The first thing you need to note down about a scene is the exact time when it happens. Record it as a period. This will help you track the succe...

Here is an opinion post. I found that quite a few writers stop writing in the middle and some don’t start writing at all for the fear of writing. Do you feel any such fear? Comment your opinions here. The major fears I can think of myself are these: 1. Fear of not being able to write well: Do you have a role model? Someone like Salman Rushdie, whom you love and respect? You may well be apprehensive that you may never write remotely as well as your favorite writer. 2. Fear to start the novel: Where should you start the novel? You will keep thinking of a hundred different ways to start the novel analyzing the possibility success with each. 3. Fear of the plot, writer’s block: As I said, and yes, most writers would say, you shouldn’t start a novel with a plot pre-thought. You should let the characters decide where to lead the story. But this can be quite a terror to writers, who feel that they will surely stop at some point of the plot without any idea as to how to progress. He...

As you read in my last post, NaNoWriMo is a fun novel writing game. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the month is November. Aspiring writers cannot afford to miss deadlines, and this writing game is quite a bit about keeping deadlines. Completing 50,000 or more words of pure fiction in 30 days’ time is sheer fun ride. Here I have some tips to equip you for it. Make sure you register at NaNoWriMo website before 30th this month. 1. Plan Ahead At this eleventh hour, planning ahead may seem awkward. But time is always valuable. You got three days to go before the competition actually starts. You can decide your plot, characters, schedule, time when you sit to write those 2000 words daily, maybe watch a few films or read a few short stories to gain some ideas, or read some related non-fiction as part of your research. You should make sure to write at a fixed period every day. This should be decided in these three days. These three days and the thirty days coming a...

In every story, there is a theme. A theme that is expressed in a single sentence or clause, such as: Army Officers Can’t Fight the War Smoking Is Injurious to Health The Most Unlikely Being Comes to Your Rescue Most Often The story’s backbone is this theme, without which the story can just be a bunch of words. The theme is the soul, and a writer should show maximum respect to it at every instant of it. Explore Your Theme Exploring a theme, and finding its separate ramifications is both an intellectual activity and a story building technique. For instance, if you have a theme like “One’s Health Is in One’s Mind” then you can crate several branches of this theme and use them in various scenes and characters in your novel: Unhealthy characters suffer from mental problems. People with depression are unhealthy. The people who fail are usually unhealthy. In a scene, mentally unhealthy character faces insecurity, though he is physically fit. These ramifications of the basic p...

I am thrilled to publish this interview with 3-time published writer, Ms Carol Denbow. Her latest release, How to Write, Publish, and Sell Your Story concentrates on all aspects of novel writing. Carol, it's wonderful to have your interview. Can you briefly tell us how you came into the world of writing? Carol Denbow: Purely by accidental discovery. After years in business for myself, and seeing first hand how difficult small business can be, I felt the need to convey the lessons I had learned (the hard way) to others desiring to be self-employed. To do this, I wrote my first book, Are You Ready to Be Your Own Boss? As most seasoned writers are already aware, writing is addictive-the road was paved. Your latest work, A Book Inside, How to Write, Publish, and Sell Your Story addresses the process of publishing in depth? Carol Denbow: Publishing is a complicated business, and yes, it is a business. The book explains in an easy to read and comprehend manner all publishing o...

Do you know that there are a number of programs available for creative writers? Yes, there are. Writers don't depend alone on word processors for their craft, just because writing a novel is more complex a process than writing a small article or short story . It is more of a brain activity than just text formatting and color selection. So, a dedicated piece of software can make the job easier. In creative writing, mainly in the areas of novel writing and short fiction writing, there are tasks such as imagining a number of characters ; developing their individual biographies, most of which may not even be mentioned in the final output; and marking plot points, which can have significance in the progress of the novel. For these tasks, nobody would think a word processor alone is enough. Here are a number of software programs that help you in your writing. I have two sections. In the first, I have high-end, feature-rich software, which are not free. In the second part, I have a prog...

We have had some character development posts already here. Narrating your characters is as important as developing them. By narration, we mean describing the character’s appearance, looks, methods, viewpoints, opinions, feelings, etc. It can be difficult to create a full-fledged character without properly describing him. Don’t Make It Flat Look at this: Ben Thompson doesn’t look like a company’s top official. He barely looked his age of 50. He had quite a good-looking face with pointed moustache, staring intelligent eyes, and sharp raised nose. His ears were pointed like those of a cat, giving him the appearance of Dracula. This narrative of Ben Thompson the central character is completely flat. It is just another description and doesn’t lead you to any interesting fact about this character. When describing your character’s features, you should make sure that it is not a straightforward description of the features. Show Characters Through Actions The best way to describe the fe...

Jim has a novel coming up about a computer professional lost in the woods with a pilot. Jim is neither a computer professional nor a pilot. In order to successfully describe these people in his story, Jim has to do a lot of research on computer technologies and flying an aircraft ––In order to make them believable. However, no matter how well he does his research, he cannot get everything right . There are always things that only computer professionals know. For instance, an actual computer professional would use the shortcut Ctrl + C to copy a portion of text from a text editor. A novelist like Jim may not know about this and may make his computer specialist character use menu item, Edit->Copy for even the simplest copy task. This will look ridiculous to a computer professional. Similar to that, we don’t know anything about flying an aircraft. If we have a pilot as a character, we still have to write about his profession, unless the story doesn’t anywhere deal with his professi...

When you read the greatest fiction works ever, have you ever asked what was so compelling about them that you not only kept reading it, but you ended up reading all other major works of the writer? It may well be because the writer touched your emotional quotient quite a bit. Every reader has a unique taste . Some like to read suspense thrillers , some tender love stories, and some others dark horror and bloodshed stories . That’s why there are all sorts of genres out there. When a writer gives you what exactly you want, you will keep reading. Here we come to the emotional appeal. Character Imperfection Perfect characters may not always be the upshot of a writer’s deliberation. It may well be due to ignorance . Usually the upcoming writers take it for granted that if they create perfect characters, they will be able to garner a bigger audience . It is not true. You have to ask yourself what a character would do in a particular situation. Perfect characters—perfect gunmen, perfect...

You may remember a recent article that appeared here about similes and metaphors . Well, here is an addition to it. You can have similes and metaphors that cross each other. It means, you can make a boat look like a fish, and a fish look like a boat: We found the boats in the distance, floating slowly like freshwater fish. We found the swift fish moving like boats. This way, you can save a lot of space and time, while achieving good comparisons. Here are some more of them: I found the weekend uninspiring as a dragging movie. I found the movie dragging as a weekend without action. It drizzled long and apparently unending as a snail in move. The snail’s movement was as long and unending as a drizzle. A surrounding army is a coiling Anaconda. Once in, there is no escape. A coiling Anaconda is like a surrounding army. Once in, there is no escape. An expert works as slowly and methodically as a beaver building its bridge. A beaver building its bridge is as slow and meth...

Introduction Yesterday, we saw some guidelines not to let your suspense fiction go astray . Writing requires great care and finesse. Every art does. The difference between the best fiction and the worst may be quite unnoticeable. It may be a small flaw in research that renders the whole story impossible, or it may be a small character trait of the central character or the antagonist. Whatever it is, its effect can be deep. While a good story without any flaws can entertain the reader and be successful, the story with these tiny flaws can alienate the reader within the first few chapters themselves. So, a minute flaw creates a great difference in sales in the world of fiction. Here, we will see some tips to write pristine horror fiction. 1. Don’t let go of the suspense Horror fiction has to have some element of suspense. A century-old specter with vampire teeth and tiger claws and enormous size will not horrify readers now. On the other hand, the suspense of who the real killer ...

In a detective or mystery story, the reader’s sole interest and entertainment is in the last pages, and the kind of wild chase of anticipation that leads to them and the culprit. Here, the half-baked scenes, characters (other than the main), dialogs , etc., won’t much affect the reader as they would in other forms of stories. Hence, the mystery should be crafted with finesse to entertain the reader perfectly. Here we will see how. About the Detective My all time favorite fictional detective is Sherlock Holmes . Though I like other detectives, including even the modern era detectives, I have never been able to find one more appealing than Mr Holmes. Why is this craze for this man? There are two reasons. First, anyone can depend on Sherlock Holmes. He is a great companion, mature person, deeply knowledgeable in his trade, and most dependable. Second, Holmes is sure to give us a solution. The basic characteristics of any central fictional character are these. In case of suspense and...

Creative writers all should ask this question to themselves. I see most of the writers are out there coming to the world of writing, just for money. They see the success of writers like John Grisham , James Patterson, and Stephen King , and believe that novel publishing is a lucrative business and a ‘get-rich-quick’ scheme. That’s why there is a big failure rate in this world . Statistics looks different from what you see. On the racks of bookstalls of the US and the UK, every year appears an average of 200,000 books. In a year, not even 1000 of them come up to the bestseller lists. It means the success falls in a fraction of 0.005 . Can you call such a business lucrative? The reason why writers fail is not because they don’t have talent or they don’t have knowledge. It’s mainly because they don’t choose what to write , or more specifically, they write for money. Yes, your aim is in the very end, money and fame. You still have to pay that mortgage, you still have tax, and you st...

In this post, we will see how to use figures of speech correctly. Metaphors and similes are the main figures of speech. They are used in creative writing to express thoughts in a non-linear fashion —to show the reader what is happening in a scene with visuals . Using figures of speech well is a great skill that comes from wear and tear. There is a fine line between the use of figures of speech and its abuse (for some examples, please see Semantics of Words ). Figures of speech, if used correctly, can be a wonderful tool of creative writing. There is a subtle difference between metaphors and similes. Metaphors are used directly, without the help of elements like ‘as’ or ‘like’ . Similes are used with ‘as’ or ‘like’ to express the similarity of two things. Examples of Great Writers Exploiting Figures of Speech “For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, and after we will both our judgments join in censure of his seeming.” [ William Shakespeare , The Tragedy of Hamlet ] “He looked u...

I see that many new writers tend to write in first person POV (Point of View) and several professionals use third person POV, either omniscient or limited. Never have I gone through a work of fiction told in second person POV, which I think is the best way to connect with your readers . Here are some thoughts on POV. First Person POV First Person POV can be either the normal type (in which the protagonist narrates the story), those narrated by someone close to the protagonist , or those narrated by ‘we’ . FP POV normal holds a highly limited and easier narration method (though there are very few writers who pull it off successfully). Though it is easy to write in this way, making it successful is up to the personality of the narrator . If it’s distinct and enjoyable to masses , the story will be successful, otherwise, no. The writer gets to concentrate on one of the characters, and sees other characters through his eyes. Hence, the character development work is reduced . Howev...

Even fiction enthusiasts may not have heard of David Armstrong . He wrote five or six novels, which were not selling big. Later, he wrote perhaps his best work, How Not to Write a Novel I happened to read this book some time back. There is nothing great to speak about this book or any of his novels. I also happened to read one of his novels, Small Vices (out of print), but didn’t finish it. How Not to Write a Novel is a book that lifts your misconceptions on the glamour of getting published . It tells you, for each Stephen King , there are hundreds of thousands of David Armstrongs . Writing is not a lucrative business to most. One touching line from this book that sticks on my mind is: “My son told me that he had seen a guy walking with my book. But I don’t quite believe that; he is an intelligent son.” [I don’t remember the right words]. Later, I read Small Vices , one of his fiction works I happened to find in the British Library. This novel deals with a detective’s effort a...