The Writers Helpers

This is the blog for writers, if your stuck in a plot and need inspiration. This is your place.

Everyone has the ability to write they just need motivation!

Writing a novel set in the past?

Research!

(Especially look at the way society was structured, average wages, health and anything that is relevant to your story.)

Period novels have such potential, don’t ruin it through lack of effort into research.

-S

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

—John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

iamscribe asked: How are YOU doing so far? I mean, I know that it's only day two but... Everyone's got different goals for Camp. Mine is (first of all) to hit 50k but after that it is to finish my novel this month. Last November it took me, like, three months and after that, I was tired of looking at it and had to take a break. Well, by break, I mean, I haven't looked at it since. I'm hoping that finishing it in a shorter amount of time will keep me motivated. What are your goals for camp?

Unfortunately, neither of us are taking part this year due to exams and other commitments, but I think we’re both doing NaNo in November!
-C

Your life story would not make a good book. Don’t even try.

—Fran Lebowitz (1950 - )

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

—George Orwell (1903 - 1950), “Politics and the English Language”, 1946

Dialogue and speech.

All characters have an accent. I don’t want to hear any of this ‘but they’re neutral, they don’t have one’, because they do. Even if it’s your accent, then they have one.

But that doesn’t mean you need to alter everyone’s speech.

Only the characters with the stronger accents need to have it changed, for example, the Southern US, y’all replaces you, and the tendency to leave out the odd sentence connective increases. Londoners drop the G from the end of words and use double negatives more often. Eastern Europeans use V instead of W in speech.

Try not to include too many accents though, it’s very rare that multiple accents encounter each other in everyday scenarios, with the exception of large cities.

-C

Anonymous asked: Just a small thing about your dialogue post - you may want to change "Deep South America" to "Deep South USA" because Deep South America makes me think, like, Argentina or Chile and not Alabama or Georgia.

I apologise for any misunderstanding, I’ll correct this as soon as I can!
-C

Not every story has explosions and car chases. That’s why they have nudity and espionage.

—Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum, Unshelved, 09-14-08

Anonymous asked: So, I play dungeons and dragons every week with a bunch of friends and I'm hoping to turn every three sessions or so into a chapter to add to our group blog. However, most of what were doing is fighting and I don't just want to write action scenes over and over again (especially since the fighting is more or less the same every session). Do you gave any advice on how I could make it more interesting for the reader?

One word for you: Dialogue!

Your characters will speak, they won’t just wander from battle to battle in total silence, so throw in some speech, what might one man say to the other, even something as pointless as

“Thought that goblin had you there, you owe me.”

“I’d have dealt with it.”

“Yes, by being killed.”

And so on, and so forth!

-C