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There’s nothing like writing a story. It is a truly satisfying creative process. In order to write a story that people will enjoy. You need to understand the key elements that all good writers use in stories. In this article we will explore these elements.

1. Brainstorming

Ask yourself these questions:

What are you are going to write about? Who will be your audience? How much do you know about what you want to write about? What do I need to find out?

2. Write from a Specific Point of View

First person: “I”

Second person: “You” (rarely used)

Third person: “She/He” (Used the majority of time but in a “limited” way) Limited simply means that the story is told through the eyes of one particular character.

3. Starting Your Story

Your story should begin in such a way that it grabs the readers attention and never lets them go, some ways to begin are: Sound Effects, for example: Splash! Pop! Another way to begin is with dialogue, that is, two or more characters having a conversation. Using action is also another way to start. Whatever you choose, you must do it in a way that draws the reader in from the very beginning, if you fail to do this then no matter how good your story gets down the road it will be pointless as you have already lost your audience.

4. Setting

Place your characters in a setting. This is where you are to use descriptive words that let your readers see, hear and even smell the setting. The setting establishes the time and place in which the story takes place. Give your readers a snapshot view of the environment so that they can see it in their mind’s eye and feel as if they are really there.

5. Characters

Characters are part of the life blood of fiction. Here are some of the types of characters you may want to create.

Main Character (Protagonist): All the action revolves around this person.

Villain (Antagonist): This person or persons oppose the main character at every turn. Villains can also become allies of the main character down the road. People change in real life as well as in stories.

Friends (Sidekicks): This person or persons helps the main character.

6. Conflict

Good conflict allows your readers to become even more involved in the plot. Conflict can arise within the characters, with other people or even with nature. The needs of characters are what drives them into action. Conflict is created when obstacles are put in the way of the characters. Here are some types of conflict that can arise in a story:

The main character vs. others

The main character vs. his /her own inner self

The main character vs. situations he/she faces in life

The main character vs. society

7. Dialogue

Finally lets take a look at the purpose and use of dialogue. Dialogue is used in conversation between your characters. The characters may also have dialogue with themselves. Good dialogue tells the reader something about the characters state of mind or personality. Dialogue should be surrounded by action and move the story along. So make every conversation count!

The task of getting published is one of the daunting aspects of writing. This can be difficult, if you want to get published by a traditional publishing house. It’s not as difficult if you want to self-publish. In this article I will share with you the steps involved in getting your work published either traditionally or through self-publishing.

Mainstream publishers are often reluctant to accept work from young writers as anyone under 18 cannot sign a contract on their own and will require parental involvement. That is not to say you cannot submit to them but make sure your work is of high quality as you will be competing with adult writers. There are also several publishers that cater specifically to young writers, for a list of these, check out the book THE YOUNG WRITER’S GUIDE TO GETTING PUBLISHED. There are also several sites on the web that accept work from young writers such as stonesoup.com and Merlyn’s pen. Make sure you edit your work thoroughly and follow the submission guidelines for publishers carefully. Some publishers prefer that you send a query letter only at first describing your project. The query letter should be only one page long. If it is longer than that a busy editor will likely just throw it to one side. Think of the back cover summary you see on most books you buy, try to summarize what your book is about in a few words. This can be difficult but it must be done and done in a way that grabs an editor’s attention. Some publishers will allow you to submit a query letter and a few chapters of your work or your entire book. It is important that you use the correct font, you can’t go wrong with courier new 12 pt and a double spaced manuscript. The query letter can use the same font but there is no need to double space it.

Let’s now take a look at self publishing. Self publishing has become quite easy with the advent of self publishers like Lulu. At lulu.com you can publish your work for free. However lulu does take a small commission of anything you sell. Lulu also sells ISBN’s for around $100 U.S. dollars. An ISBN will make your book available for international sale. It will become available to places like Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and hundreds of other distributors worldwide. When you self publish you set your own price and your age never becomes a factor as it will be with some traditional publishers. If you decide to self publish everything falls into your hands, from editing to formatting. Lulu provides several services for these publishing details, however the costs can add up for young writers. The good news is that with patience and determination you can do it yourself. Lulu provides templates for formatting your book. If you can find a teacher, friend or parent to help you with editing you are well on your way without breaking the bank. Lulu makes making your book cover as easy as possible although you are responsible for finding your own image if you do not wish to use their images.

Finally, there is nothing like seeing your work in print and the opportunities for young writers are greater than ever.

Everyone might have a dream, but what would you do when you get up in the morning? I’m sure almost everyone forgot about as soon as they washed their face in a bathroom. What’s so important about your dream? The answer is easily made, because I’m sure that you sure had an great experience in your dream something like adventured in the deep jungle, chased by terrific monsters and anything else. And I know that not all of you could remembered all of your dreams. Yes, me too, but I have got some techniques to dig your dream out of your unconscious mind and it will give you a new nice idea for your new novel.

Writing a novel is really hard. It hard to find a new idea to write it in your book. So, I recommend to use your dreams. Why your dream is gonna work, because I believe that what inspired (or terrified) you can also inspired the others. But the difficult things is to remember your dream. Almost everyone forgot their dream right after they wake up. Someone can still remember what they had dream but not very exactly.

Let’s me tell you something about the “dream” that some of you may don’t know. When we sleep, our eyes will move very rapidly, this is called REM (Rapid Eyes Moving) period and when our eyes will not move, this is called no-REM period. Our body will change from REM to no-REM from time to time. I’m not sure about exact periods time but it’s about one hour and a half. When we are in REM mode, we will begin to dream. This theory can explain why our dream is not continuous and change very differently in one night. The other things about the dream is beyond the scope of this article and you can find more detail on the net.

Now, how can i write out my dream? you may ask. The answer is simple, grab a pen (or pencil) and write. It may be sound ridiculous but to write something at the moment you wake up is difficult. You have to practice to write after you wake up. Here are some tips:

1. Find some pen (or pencil) and some paper or notebook and put it right after your body before you go to sleep.

2. When you wake up, try to write down anything you can remember as much as possible. For example, when you dream of a monster that had chased you in the forest. Try to write down the very detail of that monster, does it has a horn?, does it has a crawl?, what color is it?, what detail of the forest you were running? Try to write down the detail of anything you can remember as the detail will help you recognize the other part of your dream.

3. After you finished you daily cleansing (or anything) sit down and revision what you wrote.

4. Repeat the process.It will take a bit time to practice until you can remember all of your dreams. Don’t give up !

Lastly, I want to say that don’t underestimate your dream. Dream can be a warn from the future, can be a new innovative creation, can be a new technology. And I’m sure it can be a new bestseller novel, too!.

Enjoy writing

Poom

If you are between the ages of 8 to 18 and love to write, be it short stories, plays or poems, then you are a young writer. For the writer nothing is more satisfying than finishing a story, play, poem etc. In fact some young writers decide to make it their career of choice. This is not always an easy path but if you have a passion for it you will ride out the difficult times. Here are some tips to help you.

1. Read widely,a good writer is one that reads constantly and widely. This helps you to get a good idea of how the language is to be written and exposes you to several different styles of writing. Reading is an excellent way to develop good grammar. You shouldn’t just stick to modern works of fiction but you should also read classic authors, study their work and the way they developed their characters. Your aim as a writer is to create characters that your readers care about, once they care about the characters readers keep turning the pages.

2. Write everyday, this may be in the form of journal writing or adding to a story, poem or whatever you may be writing. Make it a routine. You have heard that practice makes perfect, well this is true for writing as well. You might want to have a special desk or area in which to write, many writers have a favorite spot in their house in which to write, being in that space puts them in touch with their creative side.

3. Editing is important. It often surprises me as a writer, how many times I revisit and review and rewrite a piece. You may think it’s perfect but a few days later when you approach the work with a fresh eye you may find there are more flaws than you saw before. So be prepared to edit a lot. You might also consider showing your work to a trusted friend, who could proof-read or help you edit. Don’t let the number of edits you have to do discourage you or let you question your ability. You might write something today that you think is brilliant and a few days later you hate it and just throw it out. That is part of the process.

4. It is often said that you should write what you know. This certainly makes writing easier and more believable. It is also true that writers should be researchers so whatever you don’t know you can always find out about through extensive research and then it will become something you do about. Live vicariously as well, remember you can learn a lot from others especially those who are older than you. Listen to their stories, they may inspire you as a young person to write something great.

5. Share your writing with others by joining groups and entering writing contests. This gets you into the habit of putting yourself and your work out there. These experiences are valuable as it provides feedback that you can use to evaluate your writing.

How to write a novel the easy way? Can it be done?

Absolutely. Learning how to write a novel doesn’t have to be complicated. When you follow a step by step process, you can take the complexity of how to write a novel and “dumb it down” to such a simple system that it becomes almost like paint by numbers.

Easy novel writing is a series of connections. You know, like “the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone.”

In the case of novel writing, your connections look like this (feel free to add the “Dry Bones” tune to this list as you read it if you know it):

IDEA is connected to

QUESTIONS, which are connected to

CONFLICT, which is connected to

STORY QUESTION, which is connected to

THEME, which is connected to

PLOT, which is connected to

CHARACTERS, which are connected to

MOTIVATION, which is connected to

CHARACTER SKETCHES, which are connected to

SETTINGS, which are connected to

SETTING SKETCHES, which are connected to

RESEARCH LISTS, which are connected to

RESEARCH, which are connected to

SCENE CARDS, which are connected to

SCENE CARD FILE, which is connected to

PACING, which is connected to

QUERY, which is connected to

SYNOPSIS, which is connected to

FIRST PAGES, which are connected to

DRAFT, which is connected to

REWRITE, which is connected to

SUBMISSION, which is connected to

SALE!

Whew! Seem like a lot. Well, it is a lot. But that doesn’t mean it’s complicated.

Let’s break it down:

1. IDEA. Your novel idea is the basic concept. For example, the idea for my novel, Alternate Beauty, was that an obese woman finds herself in an alternate universe where fat is beautiful. This is kind of intriguing, but it’s certainly not enough for a novel. So you have to start asking

2. QUESTIONS. To flesh out an idea, you need to start asking questions. Your seed question needs to be “What if”. For instance, what if the woman who was in the alternate universe began losing weight. You throw out a bunch of answers to the what if question, and then you pick one that tickles your fancy and ask another what if question. It goes like this: Once the woman begins losing weight, she ends up as unhappy in the new universe as she was in the old. So what if she got fed up with being unhappy. Etc. etc.

As you work through what if questions, you throw in “Why” questions. Why does the woman lose weight? Why is she unhappy?

Keep stringing these questions together and you’ll begin to find your

3. CONFLICT. Conflict comes from a character wanting to get something and being blocked in some way from getting what he or she wants. A good novel makes characters’ lives miserable before everything turns out in the end (either good or bad). You weave your questions together in a way that reveals your character’s desires and what obstacles preventing him or her from achieving those desires. It’s the conflict that keeps your reader guessing when you keep creating

4. STORY QUESTIONS. Story questions are the secrets you keep from the reader so the reader has questions in his or her mind. You layer the conflict, one upon the other, so the reader has to keep reading to satisfy his or her curiosity. All the story questions, when answered at the end of the novel reflect the

5. THEME. The theme is the central message of the novel&ndashthe statement you want to make about the human condition. The theme is the unifying element of everything you put in your

6. PLOT. Plot is the story&ndashthe culmination of conflict and story question. It’s not just what happens in the novel but why what happens is compelling. Plot is compelling when it’s driven by life-like

7. CHARACTERS. Characters are the people in your story. Think of them as the train that carries your plot along. Characters only carry along a plot in a compelling way when they have clear

8. MOTIVATION. Motivation is the psychological and experiential explanation for why your characters do what they do. Once you have a central motivation for each main character, you can easily create

9. CHARACTER SKETCHES. Character sketches are your character’s bios. These include everything from physical characteristics to history to personality to favorite color. Great characters are rich with detail and they live in equally rich

10. SETTINGS. Settings are the place of your novel. You can create settings that your reader can easily visualize when you create

11. SETTING SKETCHES. Setting sketches are the who, what, where, why, and how of your settings. They consist of diagrams, pictures, and other specific information to make settings unique and interesting. You get this information and every other fact you need to support the story of your novel from your

12. RESEARCH. Research will answer all the detail questions, and if you do it right you’ll have a good balance of enough information and not too much to bog down the story. Once you’ve done your research you can create

13. SCENE CARDS. Scene cards are index cards that contain outlines of every scene in your novel. Scene is a specific chunk of the story, one that is its own closed loop. Every good scene has a purpose and it leads to the next good scene. This is how you create a

14. SCENE CARD FILE. The scene card file is where you put all your scene cards. Since each scene has its own card, you can easily rearrange scenes as needed to create perfect

15. PACING. Pacing is the rhythm of the novel. You take the reader for a thrill-ride, and then you slow things down. Speed up, slow down. The story questions you created when you plotted is what helps create the speed flow. When you have your novel paced well in the scene cards you’re ready to write a

16. QUERY. The query is the one to two page letter needed to submit to an agent or editor. When you write it before you draft your book, it embeds your theme and central plot in your mind. It also helps you write the

17. SYNOPSIS. A synopsis is a narrative outline of the novel, told in a compelling way but placing all essential information in a concise package of only 10 to 30 pages or so. If you can put your story in this space, you’ll find it incredibly easy to then take the skeleton of the story, fill it in with the meat of your scene cards and write a magnificent first

18. DRAFT. The draft of your story is the natural result of all the connections that have come before. It’s simply sitting at the computer and using all the elements you’ve created to spill the story onto the page. Once it’s there, you can

19. REWRITE to polish the words to pristine perfection. Then you’re ready for

20. SUBMISSION. Submission is easy when you’ve done all the other work. You already have a query, synopsis, and polished manuscript. So you just need to hit Writer’s Market and find a list of agents or editors to whom to send your query. When the agent or editor asks for more, you’ll send the synopsis and eventually the draft, and one day you’ll get the call telling you that you’ve made a

21. SALE. This is when you scream and jump around and go out and buy your favorite meal and then be annoyingly perky for weeks on end.

And just like that, you’ve created a novel readers will love. All because you followed a paint-by-numbers system for how to write a novel.