Story writing tips

Tips to enrich your story writing style:

1.   Think before you start writing: Think of the theme, genres, paragraph divisions, and characters before you begin to write. Spend 5 minutes on this. It will maintain the gestalt and length of the story and prevent you from having to re-write or end abruptly. You do not want to start with 'Potato' and end with 'Pluto'.

2.   Keep a mix of different types of sentences (short simple sentence, long simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence): Do not tend to overuse and/or continuously repeat a particular type. If there are too many simple short sentences coming one after the other, see if they can be joined to make a complex sentence. (Complex, not complicated)

3.   Give thoughts to your paragraphs: Your paragraphs should look connected. If you need to introduce a totally unrelated character in the process, give the readers a break in thoughts by using phrases like “in the meanwhile, somewhere far away from the village” or “while everyone was happily enjoying in the palace, a wicked witch in a remote jungle felt angry” etc. Change the paragraphs when there is a pause, a big time-leap, or a change of scene. Paragraphs are also changed to give a breather/pause to the reader.

4.   Think before using ‘and’, ‘so’, ‘then’: Take a pause before you write these words. Ask yourself if it’s necessary to use them. Avoid repeating them.

5.   Think before using 1^st and 2^nd person pronouns: Before using ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘we’, ask yourself if you’re writing a dialogue. If someone is talking to someone there, use dialogue grammar appropriately.

6.   Maintain consistency of details: Do not spend so much space on the detailed description of one aspect, that you’ve to hastily cover the other aspects. Try to explain everything to the same extent. The aspects that you value more should be detailed more.

7.   Use idioms and proverbs: Replace ‘It rained so heavily’ with ‘It rained cats and dogs’. Replace ‘He is bragging’ with ‘He is blowing his own trumpet.’ But not too much.

8.   Use richer words: Avoid modifying all nouns and adjectives with ‘very’. Replace ‘He is very confused’ with ‘He is perplexed’. Learn root-words. Replace ‘He is an eye doctor’ with ‘He is an ophthalmologist’. Work on your vocabulary. Take one word per day and try to use it in various ways while thinking, talking, and/or writing. Have fun with a word every day.

9.   Read more: Read more stories to enrich ‘how to write’. Read more encyclopedias to enrich ‘what to write’. Better fund of information prevents errors while writing, and also gives depth to stories. For example, to write a fantasy story on aliens, one must know that aliens are creatures from outside the earth.

More:

1.   Write a draft/index before you begin the actual story. Check your introduction, narration, and conclusion.

2.   Be mindful of the timeline of your story.

3.   Do not end your story abruptly.

4.   Give characters names and personalities according to the period and culture your story is set in.

5.   Connect with your characters.

6.   Do not write the words as they come to your mind.