Writers' Treasure

Effective writing advice for aspiring writers

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Demolish your writer’s block

This is a guest article by Edwin Henry. If you want to submit a guest article of your own be sure to read the guest article guidelines.

A lot of people want a magic bullet to either motivate them to start writing for the first time, or a method to get around a mental block. Writers’ Treasure has talked about this before, with Idrees relating his solutions for shaking off stagnation and mixing things up.

There is a romantic idea that inspiration is something that strikes you, and after that light goes off, you’ll dive into your magnum opus and come out the other side with a complete work. The reality is, writing takes work, and if you’re blocked, it feels like that work is impossible to follow through with.

That paralysis can really jam up your creative track and make you struggle to get even a couple of words out onto a page. Especially if you have an inkling of what you want to talk about, but feel kind of stuck on how to achieve it.

Here are the things that have and continue to help me. Some of them are based on when I first started writing, when blocks are powerful things because self-doubt is hard to counter because you may be lacking evidence to dissolve it.

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How to pick out a character for your novel

This is a guest article by James Thompson. If you want to submit a guest article of your own be sure to read the guest article guidelines.

Believe it or not, but the profession of your novel characters play a major role in making your novel a big hit. Using clichéd professions such as doctor, lawyer, detective, or an actor won’t suffice — unless it’s the only relevant choice. The profession of the characters, especially the main character, is what sets the scene for your book. Readers prefer reading something “fresh”.

How often do you read about a wizarding profession? (I’m sure we all clearly remember the famous books with those characters). All right, these aren’t all technically “professions”, but they set the scene and add more flavor to the character. They make a character more memorable.

A character’s profession affects the entire novel. It pinpoints to a personality type.

For example, what kind of a personality would you expect a detective to have? Clever, unsocial, and offensive at times? How about a rich guy? Bold, clever, and slightly arrogant? The profession also affects the plot. Since the profession forms the personality and “role” of a character, it’s bound to alter the plot and the way the character acts and reacts in it.

I have stressed enough about the importance of the characters’ profession. Now, let’s move on to how to pick out a suitable career for them. Relax, they are only characters! They won’t complain about freedom of choice.

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How to write tight sentences

This is a guest article by Drusilla Richards. If you want to submit a guest article of your own be sure to read the guest article guidelines.

Many bloggers and writers today have trouble writing tight sentences. So, what really is a tight sentence? It’s a sentence(s) that is clear, concise, and written in a manner that makes every word count.

So, if I’m going on and on giving “background information” such as where, what, why, who, and you know all that stuff, before I get to the point, then clearly — my sentences are not “tight”… similar to this sentence. Yikes!

Loose sentences cause a number of problems for the readers.

First of all, readers fail to understand the real topic of discussion for a long period of time. The author takes so long to get to the point, that meaning is lost within the details. A reader might have to re-read the piece just to look for the main point.

Secondly, loose sentences make a writing piece boring. Readers are yawning, stretching, and daydreaming before they get to the main idea.

Here are a few tips on what you should be doing to avoid “loose sentences” and make your sentences look as fit and “tight” as they can be.

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Creative writing in 2015: here’s what you need to know

There are few things constant in the world, and creative writing is not one of them.

Sure, it may not look like it on the surface. After all, creative writing is one of those things which stays evergreen, supposedly. Books on creative writing written decades ago still have relevance in the present. Creative writing advice from years ago is still useful today.

It’s the reason why I wrote Creative Writing 101 in 2010, and it’s the reason why that resource remains the most popular on Writers’ Treasure, as well as still being evergreen content. Outdated? Of course not.

But it’s been five years since Creative Writing 101, and as specified, it was a beginner’s guide. What about an upgrade? What about the next level? …..

So here you have it. Announcing Creative Writing 201 – a new series of articles, a new creative writing resource aimed to upgrade your creative writing skills to the next level. The aim is to upgrade a creative writer to become an intermediate and then an expert.

Intended as a proper successor to Creative Writing 101, this series of articles will be even more in-depth, more readable (like always).

We’ll start from a macro look at creative writing as it stands today, move on to the macro issues, macro tips and techniques, and macro examples of effective creative writing.

See the keyword? Macro? What does it mean? And our topic today: creative writing in 2015. Isn’t this topic contradictory to what I said a few paragraphs ago? The answers to these questions – and many more – are found in the full explanation below!

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Check out our writing services

Many tasks are difficult for writers.

As in, even many parts of the entire writing process are difficult. In fact, nothing is easy in writing. Not even the pros find it easy. All they do is make it look easy, but ask them whether they found it difficult in the beginning and the answer will most certainly be in the affirmative.

Content writing, editing and proofreading, and publishing. All these three tasks sound confusing, but they’re not. Broken down into small chunks, they’re doable. Millions are at least doing it.

Few, though, are doing it the right way.

The reasons for that run in the hundreds. One of the most true come down to time, or more precisely, the lack of it. Who has the time to even write these days, never mind the time to write well, edit and proofread it, and then finally publish it online for others to read.

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The #1 writing advice: write the truth

First off, this isn’t your typical Writers’ Treasure article. It’s even more brilliantly readable, and it has a completely different subject and tone. It’s not theoretical, and it’s not applicable to creative writers. But for all other kinds of writing, it’s the truest advice I’ve ever written.

Interested? Let’s start the session then.

It’s 2015, and although writers have improved the quality of their writing a lot, other aspects of it have fallen by the wayside.

You might be able to avoid the common mistakes and learn to write frequently. But in the end, none of that matters if you’re making not just a technical mistake, but also a moral and ethical one.

As in, you don’t write the truth.

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