How to Write a Good Story

Interlude: Fun stuff (II)

How to improve the fun way:

2. Have tea with a friend

That's right. It seems very arbitrary, but finding a non-writer with whom you can discuss your plot, characters, struggles, frustrations and ideas is one of the best ways to improve. This may not help you improve your grammar (unless your friend is a grammar nazi who is proof-reading your book), but this will help you sift out the problems that take away the suspension of disbelief from your story, or in other words, the things that don't add up, or aren't that believable.

Sometimes talking to someone else about your book helps clear the fog you get caught up in, helps you think more clearly about what should happen next, or what you should change. Now, it needn't be tea, in fact I prefer coffee, but the point is to reel in some fresh perspective, and preferably do it far away from your writing spot (desk? ipad? bed? couch? whatevs).

It's important for the person not to be an author, because you will get raw perspective from a reader without it being bogged down by the myriad of two-sided rules in the writing world (Don't use adverbs, use adverbs, don't use italics, use italics, blah blah blah).

3. Copycat

The third fun way to improve, is to find things you like (a conversation from glee? a snippet from a cool movie? an overheard conversation from the locker room?) and play around with them on MS Word, or whatever you use to write. The idea is to copy whatever it is you found that you like so much, and then to rewrite it and make it your own, change elements, rephrase, play around and in so doing improve your skills without too much effort. 

4. Games

Visit the clubs feeds on wattpad, and play some of the games there. I recently found a game which I thoroughly enjoyed and which worked out my story thinking muscles very well: Write a story consisting of two sentences (by @craigiedean). Reading some of what was written blew my mind, and inspired me to make attempts. These kinds of silly games actually help us improve if we pay attention and glean from other writers.

Do you have any fun ways that you use to improve your writing or to conquer the evil writer's block? Please share below in the comments!