Writing Tips!

2

A lot of these chapters are probably going to be pet peeves to be honest XD

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This chapter is partially inspired by @KasaiQueen

Using the correct tense of a word:

Theres past, present, and future tense.

Here's some examples:

Word: Run
Past: She ran.
Present: She is running.
Future: She plans to run.

Word: Survive
Past: He survived.
Present: He's surviving.
Future: He is going to survive.

I'm not really sure what else to say here but I've just noticed that some authors don't use the right tense of a word. If you have any questions about this, let me know.

Story Descriptions:

If you look at some of my stories, you'll notice I have horrible descriptions. I get lazy.

Don't do that.

Personally, a story's description is what determines if I even open the book. If there isn't a description, then I probably won't read it. If it's very vague or uninteresting, then I probably won't read it. Here's some tips to write a decent description:

1) Imagine you are writing a paragraph for the back of an actual book.
Have you ever gone to a library or bookstore? Most of the time, when you pick up a book, you can tell more about it by looking at the back cover of it. Sometimes it will have a summary, an introduction, or even reviews. When you write the description of your story, imagine you're writing the back cover of a book. Be detailed, but make sure you don't give away too much of the story or no one will want to read it. You might choose to simply introduce the main character rather than the plot. "John Doe was just an average guy who ... but that all changed when ..." is a commonly used start of descriptions.

2) Be careful what you say.
The thing that makes me click out of a book the fastest is when I see "this is my first book" or something along those lines. If I see anything like that, then I'll immediately look for something else to read. It could be an amazing story, but in my experience, everyone's first book is kind of rough. If you want more readers, I would recommend just not telling them it's your first book. People might comment on your story that it needs improvement but people will do that to any story.

Another thing is to be freaking truthful. I absolutely hate it when I click on a story, I read the description, decide I'll read it, and then when I read it, it's nothing like it said it was. Sometimes it's a troll but there's also been times when the plot in the description doesn't match the plot in the book.

So just be mindful of what you put in your description.

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I don't know if this was helpful at all or not, but I felt like I needed to post something.

Comment if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them : )