A Girls Survival Guide

Untitled Part 24

                       Writing

I decided to do an article about this because frankly, we're all on Wattpad and as such, most of us have a passion for writing. There are times when we may feel the need to improve so that we can become better writers. Here are some tips:

1)PLOT — The plot is one of the most important things you ned to consider when writing. Having a solid plot means not only knowing what the book is going to be about, but also having faith in what you're writing about. If you have a story idea, but you don't particularly like it, or it is not to your taste, then how are you sure that other people are going to like it. For example, you are more of an action reader, but you want to write a romance novel. In all truth, it might not work out. Choose a genre and idea that works for you and something that really speaks out over other books. Apart from that, make sure your idea is solid and that you have worked out all the angles. At first, it may seem that you've figured everything out, but it is necessary to take some thorough time to think about the idea and what's going to happen in each chapter (making sure that the events and personalities correspond) before you go ahead and write the book. Failure to do so may occur in a lot of changes on your part and confusion on the readers part. It is even more necessary to meditate on your plot if your story is going to have a sequel, or is going to be a series. Think about whats going to happen in the later stories, and see if the coincide with what is happening in the first book and so on. Don't forget to make your plot has some twists as well as uniqueness. Over Cliché stories can get on people's nerves.

2)CHARACTER- A characters personlity could make a story even more interesting. Your character's personality is always best shown in a subtle way - that is, you give hints about it through various events throughout the story, and the reader will work out the rest. These hints are given in their speech.

These hints are given in their speech, emotions and general way of how they deal with things. Also, unless it is necessary for the plot, never make a character  perfect as we all have flaws, especially when you're trying to make the story realistic. Readers tend to be drawn more towards the characters, when they are relatable and funny, but this is just a suggestion rather than a necessity. Depending on your plot, your character(s) can have various appearances; don't just limit yourself to the ones you've seen in movies, read in books or cliché appearances such as the guy being drop dead gorgeous, the mean girl having blonde hair and perfect physique or the geek wearing glasses. Go wild (when you create a character that looks like Arnold Shwar...《you know his name》and an ogre-princess combined, don't blame it on my advice) :).

3)GRAMMER- Very Important! I personally find it hard to read a story that has a lot of grammatical errors such as typos, spelling mistakes, lack of punctuation etc. Apart from these main faults, things such as subject-verb agreement, forming proper sentences etc also matter alot. These things are not often considered in depth, and so overlooked but if you are about to start writing a new story, these things can help alot - changing the way you write a story in the middle of a book is not always helpful. Writing lessons, discussions with English teachers and extended research on certain English topics can really improve your writing skills. Remember that no one is a Da Vinci first time round but with practice, you'll elevate.

4)STYLE AND DIALOGUE : This refers to your way of writing and speech. IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY THAT YOU PUT YOUR SPEECH IN QUOTATION MARKS! Try to keep your speech interesting and relevant to the plot otherwise, it may end up getting boring. 

As for your style, if you're writing comes in the form of past, present, future, past perfect, future perfect, present perfect etc, make sure it stays that way throughout, unless it comes in the form of narration where someone in the present (or maybe even future - though that would be confusing) would write about something that happened in the past, or something that will happen in the future. DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT CHANGE YOUR STYLE OF WRITING IN THE MIDDLE OF A BOOK UNLESS IT IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE TO THE PLOT. Make sure to keep your sentences and writing organised so that the readers don't get confused. 

DESCRIPTION : A description doesn't just mean telling someone how something looks like, but explaining the physical details of a certain object. In descriptions, sometimes an in depth explanation of a few critical features beats a simple description of all. Let the reader use their imagination in the rest of the features, whilst knowing exactly what the other features look like. Try not to use too many big words in your story as that will lead to your reader checking their dictionary way too many times and possibly getting a headache. Keep it simple but ensure that it makes sense.

Hopefully this has been of help to you and if you have any extra questions, you can ask me via comments or PM. You can also seek reference from the following book : How To Write A Wattpad Story by @AquaSirene. I also found it very useful. You never know that you're not writing to the best of your ability until you try different methods and extend your knowledge. If you have any topics that you would like me to discuss, feel free to comment and vote below. 

Question of the day : if you were a reader in search of a good boik, based on the cover and description, would you add it to your library? Now, based on the story, would you read past the first chapter? <—-Actually, that's two questions :) Rate your story out of 10! Don't rate based on your efforts and time spent because as a reader, you don't actually know how much work the author has gone through to write the story. You only see what's in front of you so it means alot when the work (and thought) you've put in translates through your writing. Have a good night/good morning. 

- @yalianne13