> I want to see A LOT of white space in the beginning. A new reader is still trying to decide if they want to read your book or not. And if they see a paragraph longer than five lines on the first page, they'll most likely end up exiting out of the book, deciding its a hassle to read ALL OF THAT and decide.
> Make your first page the most intriguing part in the entire first chapter. Don't tell me who the character is. The character should already be who they are. Instead, start the story. Start right in. It'll be even better if you start with a conversation. Isn't that what they do in movies anyway? You don't hear a narrater teling us what kind of person the actor is. You hear the actor him/herself begin talking.
> Never say too much. Never say too little. The reader will not care what the character had for lunch, and unless its some witty ass thing to describe, don't mention it. We all know what a cheeseburger tastes like. Always remember to stay on the story's track. Not to get off talking about something that you weren't even talking about in the beginning.
> Write with emotion. Run, and come back to write with a speedy heartbeat. Feel fear and right away open a laptop or get a notebook and write. Get so angry or upset and right away begin to write. Emotion tickles your genius side. Always remember that.
> Writing takes a lot of polishing. Don't share your work with others if you've written it for the first time. (you’ll most likely get negative feedback or no feedback at all and feel depressed then eventually give up) Instead, challenge yourself. Rewrite. Rewrite. Polish. Edit. Rewrite. Compare your work with great writers, Tell yourself you suck and rewrite again. Believe me, you'll find tricks about writing you've never thought of before.
> Bring your characters to life. Don't give them specific characteristics, explain them at the beginning of the story, and completely forget about what they hell you made them out to be in the middle and the end. Make them 3D, believe that they exist, think about them more than you think about yourself, and create a special voice for them. (That'll naturally happen eventually when you rewrite your book until you've grasped all the details you wanted to define your characters with.)
> LOVE YOUR BOOK. As soon as you loose interest in your story, find something to make you passionate about it again. Like watching an emotional movie, or reading an emotional book (even though I don't completely recommend that and I'll tell you why in a second) don't ever continue your a story that you feel your forced to write. Zero emotion will be added to your novel. I remember writing a part of the book in F.A.I.T.H. and when I came back to it years later I cried my eyes out, and I suddenly remembered how when I wrote it back then I was crying my eyes out too. Emotion is important. It lasts.
> Don't let your ideas come from other things. Never base a story on a story. You'll get nowhere with your book. Make it as unique as possible. And if you hear anyone telling you that they are reminded of something similar, try to change it around until it become only yours. Treat a book as a project. Before starting it, write down all the ideas you want for it. And keep doing this until you've gathered enough ideas to make up a one of a kind book. When you do this, settle those ideas in a pattern that you want your book to go in. And as you write, always be excited until you get to the next awesome idea that you came up with. Stay like that until you get to the end of the story.
> Never use the same words in a paragraph twice. The book will instantly sound like an amateurs piece of work. You should be more creative with words. Grab a thesaurus and always keep it at hand.
> Don't think of how many words or pages you need to keep your book under or over. Its your book. You can do whatever the hell you want with it.
> If its hard for you to keep track of your character's description. Print out a picture of someone you can see him/her as and taped it on the wall in front of you as you type. Before long, you'll memorize his description. Or remember a character from a show that you love, surely you've seen the actor long enough to know what types of expressions he's capable of.
> Don't be a reader while typing your story, but be a reader and a writer. Writers usually get scared of a certain plot in the book, as if they had suddenly become a reader. They, themselves, become moved by that scene and they decide out of fear to change to their liking 'as a reader' NO! Continue to write the scene as the character’s flow of emotions and actions, not yours. Never be a reader like that! You have to deliver emotions to your readers in the best possible, not give them what they want. Never fear to play with their emotions. Always focus on who the character is.
> If you don't like something DELETE DELETE DELETE. Never go along with something that suddenly made you feel uncomfortable, or just isn't right. You'd feel like the story suddenly became out of place and you just wonder where they hell it went wrong. Well... You went wrong when you said 'ahh I don't really know about this line. Let me write more maybe something will change.' Nope. Stop right there and erase, rewrite it, and go back to it later. You'll see that its much more flowy.
> End with a cliffhanger if you can. There is nothing better than that. And I can tell you this with all honesty as it is coming from the Queen Of Cliffhangers.
> Don't show all your character's cards right away. Keep a little guessing for the reader to do. Writers tend to stuff the first chapter with a life description of the heroine. Nope, I don't really care who she is, all I care about is what the ENTIRE story is going to be like and if its a good idea for me to waste my time right now and continue reading.
> If its dramatic, don't make it dramatic and talk about how dramatic it is, let the reader feel that emotion. "O: Omg, that happened to her?" That's the readers job to do. Not the writer's. So always remember to find a way to make it dramatic, but not in a showy off way, and instead, in the most humble way possible.
If you guys want me to highlight on any other things, let me know. By the way these are MY opinions as a writer. I'm not a professional and never claimed to be one, but for me, that's what I look for in reading and writing a story.
This is dedicated to everyone who asked me for any tricks or tips on writing.
Hope I helped in anyway!
(P.S. I think F.A.I.T.H. sucks and still needs a lot of editing to be done on it.)
