General things I know about writing
- You can always make bad writing better. You can’t improve nothing.
- Good writing = rewriting.
- Read it aloud to help make it .better.
- Sometimes when you start out, the story loses steam partway through. That’s normal.
- If you really want to be a writer, force yourself to finish a story, rather than abandoning story after story to chase after a new idea, or just polishing the first chapter over and over.
Once you have an idea, ask yourself:
- How can I make it bigger or worse?
- What research do I need to do?
- What can I steal from myself?
When you're writing
- Don't spend a lot of time setting the stage. Start with something puzzling, mysterious, scary, new, interesting. Start with the day everything changed.
- Appeal to all the senses.
- Don’t tell us he’s mad, happy , scared, etc. Show us his emotions by how he acts.