Okay, so you're probably like, "Why would I try and look for the mistakes, plotholes, whatever in my work?" The answer is simple: to make your story better.
Wow... I'm sorry if that came off a little mean. T'was not intended!
Anyways, let's take a largly popular author (whose books I love!), Brandon Sanderson. On his website, he shows his progress in his books, which I think is super awesome! Anyways, but during this past year, while I anticipated the arrival of the third book of his Skyward series, I began to track his progress.
As the weeks and months went on, I began to notice how many drafts he was making. Finially, he made it to five or six drafts. That meant he went over his whole book, looking for mistakes, about five times! Not once! Not twice! FIVE times! Why am I making this such a big deal? Well, it is easy to look over it once and then be like, "I think it's good!" and then move on. Now, I'm not saying you have to review and critique your work five or six or seven times. I'm just suggesting that since it is important.
On that note, shall we begin?
1. Critique right after you finish a chapter. This just makes the process a lot quicker. So when you finish a chapter, instead of uploading it to Wattpad and moving on so you can critique it later. No! DO IT NOW! Right when you finish the chapter, while everything is freash in your mind and the adrenaline is still running, critique it!
2. Go slow. There have been so many times where I am critiqueing my work for like the third time and only then do I notice a small grammar error. I'm always like, "How did I miss this?" So go slow, don't rush! If you are stuck on how to say something in the way you want, take a break.
3. If you change something about the plot, go over your older chapters and make sure there are no plot holes and that everything makes sense. When I was younger, I wrote this story and then later added some extra characters without directly looking at the plot. Then I had to go back and make sure that they were incorperated and stuff like that.
4. Don't be afraid to be hard on your writing. Look at what you write and say, "Is this even good? Does my protagonist grow in any way? Are the side characters, good for nothing?" Just because you like something, doesn't mean its good. If you look at it and say it's not good, you don't have to give up and stop writing. Go back to the beginning and try again.
5. Make your writing realistic. Don't be afraid to research. It can be as easy as what does a character do when they are injured?
6. Don't use the same words all the time. A great example is the word "said". If you can't think of anything to replace it with, then GUESS WHAT!?! you can use the thesaurus. It is gifted with so many words. Try to find the right word that fits the mood.
7. Never make the story at any point boring. If it is boring for you, it's probably boring for the reader. If it's boring or irrevelent to the story, take it out. You don't need it and it isn't helping the reader at all.
8. Critique in a quiet place. No music. (I actually don't know how many of you write with music, but I know I do!) You want to find a place where you can get immersed into the story as a reader would.
Well this is unsatisfying! I didn't make it to ten! Well right now I gotta go and critique Goldie so see ya!
Thanks for reading!!!
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Writing Tips
RandomI am here to give you tips on how to be a better writer or author. Enjoy! BTW this is a community based project so feel free to request and add your own opinions.
