Writing Tips & Tricks Hub

What's your process for writing and posting? Do you have certain rules, or a routine you follow? Things you avoid? Things you hate in other people's writing?

This is the place to share your techniques, your gripes and annoyances, your tips, tricks, advice, or any other writing-related thing that comes to mind. Feel free to ask for critiques or rant about how much you hate certain authors, or whatever you want. America, man.

A few rules of mine to start us off:

ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: I'm a crappy writer and not an authority on any of this. Feel free to call me an idiot.

Everything sounds good but number 3, or at least the flow part. Good flow makes a good personal voice, which is something every good writer must have.

Time for volume one of Sht Jay Learned from Creative Writing That Made Him Suck Less.

1. Avoid telling, instead show. Showing versus telling is an element of craft, and one you should keep in mind while writing. Instead of saying what a character feels, is, or is thinking, show it through the environment or their action. i.e. Instead of saying "Roberto was mad," say "Roberto glared at Emilia, daggers coming from his eyes. He gripped the table so hard that his knuckles grew pale." Don't insult your readers, they can insinuate.

2. Writing is like an iceberg. It is best to keep most information underwater. I know you want all the wonderful ideas you have to be crammed onto the page, but we must revisit the idea of insulting your reader. You don't have to tell them everything. You can insinuate stuff about your story through dialogue, thoughts, and action. If you are writing a story about a couple who has a relationship-ending fight and then goes out to dinner, leave the fight out. Show the reader there is something wrong through the characters. Let them guess, it leaves discussion.

3. Avoid attributors (he said, she said, etc.) in your dialogue. Use it to indicate the speakers, but don't use them afterwards. It interrupts dialogue flow and the grip it can have on readers. You want readers to be involved in the dialogue, to read these words and know there are characters behind them. It is fine to interrupt with scene reminders, to help the readers with these. e.g. Roberto paced the room, Roberto slammed his hand on the table. Just no, "Roberto said, she responded." Also, no "Roberto slammed his hand on the table angrily. It's redundant, it insults your readers.

4. Good dialogue does more than one thing at a time. It shows relationship between characters while furthering plot. Don't include useless sht in your dialogue, e.g. "The weather is nice today." It is worthless.

5. Don't do too much summary. Summary is when you have a long time period in a brief moment, kind of recapping. You want more scene, where there is actually something happening, usually with dialogue. You can have a story entirely of scene, but never have a story entirely of summary.

6. Similies suck, metaphors rule. This is a personal preference of mine. Metaphors feel strong, confident, like the writer knows what he or she is saying.

7. Use flashbacks to advance story. Kind of like dialogue, they must be meaningful. Also, flashbacks aren't backstories like scene is not summary. Flashbacks are a certain time, backstories are a recap of the past.

This has been volume one of Sht Jay Learned from Creative Writing that made him Suck Less.