Saturday, August 29, 2009

6 Golden Rules For Fiction Writers

As an aspiring writer of novels you probably come across obstacles in your writing course on a daily basis. That is to be expected. Writing a novel is quite a long process and you are bound to have days when you have writer's block, lack of motivation, and are just feeling generally unproductive. Here are some fiction writing tips and golden rules for writers to get you back on track.

1. Write about subjects that are interesting to you. You may have a grand idea for a novel that you think will make you a millionaire, and in fact that may be the case. However, if it is a subject you have no interest in you are going to have a hard time staying motivated to complete an entire manuscript. If you're writing on a subject which is near and dear to your heart or at least something you are very interested in, you'll find the process of writing much easier. You'll also find you won't have to do as much research.

2. Don't let your mother look over your shoulder. A lot of writers subconsciously censor themselves because they begin to think about all the other people who might read their book should they get published. So instead of freely writing, they end up writing very stilted descriptions with the thought in mind of who is going to be reading it later. You must write without worrying about who will read your book.

3. Join a writer's group. This is important so that you can get constructive criticism that is objective. You may be showing your manuscript to your friends and family, but most of the time they are not going to give you very good criticism. Why? They don't want to hurt your feelings. But you need to hear what people actually think of your writing so that you will have a better chance of selling your work later. It's great to show your unfinished novel to your friends, but in your writers group you will get the best critiques.

4. Develop a thick skin. You must allow people to give you their honest opinion of your work. This is how you can improve. You also need to remember that you will probably get a lot of rejections for your work, and you will need to not take it personally. Learn from these rejections and improve your writing. Editors may sometimes include notes for you and these will be great fiction writing tips that you can apply.

5. Always read. Never stop reading books on writing, books in your genre, as well as a wide variety of other subjects. Become as well read as you possibly can.

6. Take classes. You may think that you already know all there is to know and that a class would only bore you, but you will find golden nuggets of crucial and invaluable information and fiction writing tips in each and every class, sometimes from your instructor and sometimes from other members of the class.

For more fiction writing tips and a step-by-step guide to write your novel, all you have to do is click here!

Learn how you can get your first novel started and finished easily with this step by step guide

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