Featured: One tip a day, keeps writer's block away!

A story doesn't need a twist. A twist can be a great way to evoke feelings in your reader, but watching a story progress towards an inevitable end can also be compelling. For example, having a character marching towards guaranteed death and exploring their emotions about this fate can be just as, if not more, compelling than having them die out of nowhere.

Similarly, it can just be fascinating to start in medias res and explore how a character eventually got to that point.

Writing doesn't need to be surprising or shocking to be entertaining or engrossing.

Sometimes world-building is really fun, and sometimes you feel like you really want to establish the setting and rules for the world, or all the proper characters before the actual plot gets written... but sometimes you simply have to accept that some things grow over time and come to you as you write the plot. Regardless of if you sit down and write details off the bat or just plan out the plot loosely, if you're in a mood, let it flow. Don't feel restricted by Having To Plan Out Things First, but just let yourself loose and write if you feel inspired. You can always edit details or edit older things later on to make more sense (as long as you haven't published yet lmao).

gimmepie said:

Tragedy doesn't equal depth, flaws do.

Click to expand...

I like this advice so much that I just wanted to expand on it. Don't just give your character flaws, or just give them a tragedy, give them these things with a purpose. You can totally give your character a tragic past as long as their flaws tend toward stemming from said tragedy. For example, a character with an abusive past may have abusive tendencies, or trust issues that make it difficult for them to rely on others, or maybe they feel extreme guilt over little things and say "I'm sorry" every other sentence.

People in real life have tragedies happen to them. And some people don't but their flaws still stem from something else in their past. Maybe your character is a shut-in by nature and thus they're awkward or rude or otherwise socially inept because of it. Maybe your character grew up in a turbulent but not abusive household with several siblings so they're pretty hotheaded or rebellious or messy.

If you have a scene for your story that you really want to write, consider writing it out in a separate document or somewhere else and figuring out how to connect it to the rest of the story at some other point in time.

Go to one of those dictionary websites and look up the Word of the Day! Write it down in your own way so you can learn its meaning and expand your vocabulary (and try to find times to use it in speech and writing!). Words have specific connotations and meaning, so learning a lot of them will inevitably help you in your writing.

Only write when you want to. Don't try to force it.

They say to write what you know--but research what you don't.

About time we brought this back to life.

If you want to keep your readers in suspense, tell them what will happen but not when, how or necessarily even why.