Effective writing advice for aspiring writers
After learning the basics of essay writing, today let’s look at story writing, dialogue writing and informal letter writing. All three are taught to us from an early age, with the exception of dialogue writing, which doesn’t come until middle school. Anyway, let’s begin!
The best resource I can give for anyone wanting to learn more about letter writing is Letter Writing 101, but here are some pointers on how to write informal letters:
In the world of fiction writing, there are many things to explore. Subplots, conflict, POV, characters, you name it. But have you heard of narrative and dialogue? If you’ve got a story, you’ve got to narrate it. If you’ve got a set of characters, they have to converse, i.e., talk. Talking in fiction writing is known as dialogue, and narrating or describing anything is known as narrative.
Now where’s the problem in that?
Too much of a good thing is usually a bad thing, and it applies here. Some writers use narrative a lot. Their characters aren’t talkers. It’s just page after page of narrative, how they did this, their journey, their perils, the people they met, the surroundings, and so on. All description. At which point your story looks like an essay which no one wants to read, rather than an amazing novel.
“Help!” someone cried out. “Get me out of this! My leg’s fractured! Is anyone there? Help!”
“Who was that?” Victor said.
A terrible noise came from a mansion. Hammering on doors could be heard. Screams echoed in the area.
“Sounds like he’s in trouble,” Dave replied, worried.
“Fractured? How? Why?”
“Let’s find out.”
Imagine what you’d feel if you came across these opening paragraphs in a book.
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