Writing Tips

[Muezzin]

:sl:

Many of our members are also talented writers, mashallah. Here is a thread to share tips and tricks of the trade you may have come across.

Here are some of my tips for writers of fiction:

Be honest. Be sincere in what you write. Be passionate. Believe in it, and make it the best it can be. Try not to neccessarily take the easy or politically-correct way out if doing so would conflict with the consequences the story truly implies. Readers deserve honesty.

Dramatise. Show don't tell, basically. Rather than summarising, dramatise. Don't tell us the main character doesn't like spiders, show us his anxious reactions to a spider on his neck.

Research. Get your facts straight. Be as authentic as you can, which ties into being honest. Read everything, fiction or non-fiction. Broaden your horizons. If you see another writer using a cool new trick, learn from it.

Share your tips below, and remember, these are only tips, not hard and fast rules.

[dqsunday]

One major tip I recommend: Don't rely on spell check to proofread your work.

In our modern world with everything done on computer now, its very easy to just let spell check or grammar check to proofread our work and not bother re-reading it ourselves, much less have somebody else re-read it. (though I suppose in a professional setting, there are Editors who's job is to read other people's works, but who knows if they actually read everything or just skim and rely on spell check too these days). It is quite disappointing to read a book, magazine or other professionally published work and see a bunch of common mistakes and typos. I saw this once or twice in books printed 25 years ago, but not to the extent I see them in books (or other printed works) published in the last 5 or so years.

[aamirsaab]

What I'd like to add is inspiration and interest. If you are struggling with ideas, ask yourself what interests you. What do you think is cool/awesome/amazing?

This doesn't have to be limited to books either. You can find inspiration from anywhere, movies, games, your job/school, heck even walking down the street can inspire you somehow. The important thing is to expose yourself to as much as you can and draw from a wide range of things.

Once this is done, you've got a good starting point for a story.

[Muhaba]

I like this thread. here are a few tips:

If you're staring at the black screen (or page) and can't think what to write, the best think to do is to just start writing. put any word on the page. and before you know it, you'll be writing nonstop.

you have to write a lot if you want to improve your writing. that's thousands of words at a time.

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[aamirsaab]

Ok so you've got yourself a starting point - whether that be a theme or concept or character etc. For the purpose of this example our main character is Bobby. He is hungry and is going to eat at a burger shop.

Next up is to create an actual story. To do that, you need a structure or framework. A typical (but not necessarily obligatory) framework would be a three stage act: beginning, middle and end.

Beginning tends to introduce the readers to your world/concepts. For this example, one of those concepts is a car. This can be done directly "Bobby locked his car" or indirectly "Bobby walked passed a car". It's important to get a good hook in the intro because you have to keep your audience (in this case: readers) attention. You want them to keep reading the next page. Also, a good beginning allows you set things up later on in the story. I'm going to use the indirect example I spoke about earlier:

Whilst on his way to the nearest Burger Shot, Bobby walked passed by a car. It wasn't long until he saw the Burger Shot's sign; it was a bright yellow circle with a blinking red 'x' in the middle. He took a few more steps until he could smell the greasy, fatty meat patties warming up on the grill. Delicious He thought to himself. He heard an engine roar behind him. He turned and was almost blinded by the car's flood lights and realised it was the same car he had passed not long ago...


The middle is where you can start having fun with your story. Now that you've introduced things, let's start seeing what happens when we mix them all together. (It's not too late to introduce some new things too)

"What the hell?!" Bobby exclaimed. "You tryin' to kill me?!"
The car stopped. A man exited. He was wearing what looked to be an eye mask, a fedora and a long flowing cape.
"I didn't know it was halloween!" Bobby joked.
The masked man walked towards Bobby and grabbed him violently before throwing him to the ground.
"I'm hungry! Really, really, hungry!" said the masked man.
"There's a burger joint right there...you freakin' weirdo!"
The masked man let go and immediately stood up.
" I need...meat!" He said.
"Yeah they got plenty of meat. Beef, chicken, pigeon...whatever you fancy"
"Good, very good"

Now, we're going to start ending the story. The aim is to give some closure, wrap things up. And if you've set up anything in the previous acts, now's the time for the grand reveal.

Bobby sat down and began tucking into his meal. The masked man had decided to order the exact same meal, which Bobby didn't find strange. The masked man then decided to sit next to him, which Bobby found very strange indeed. He took notice of the masked man, who now seemed to be smelling his food.
"That some kind of voodoo?"
The masked man stopped his ritual and faced Bobby, who had just taken another bite out of his beef burger, sauce oozing down the side of his mouth.
"This burger...it's beef? Correct?"
"Yes" Bobby said, in between another mouthfull.
"I don't like the taste of beef..."
"Well...what taste do you like?"
"I like..the taste of humans..." said the masked man, before staring eerily into Bobby's eyes.
Bobby gulped.

Remember this is just a guideline and I made the example up on the spot. But it's to give people an idea as to how to approach a story in terms of structure. I've also deliberately included some bells and whistles to give the story a bit more oomph without being super obvious (for example: I used the concept of duality with Bobby's hunger with the masked man's - except with a slight twist on it, but I gave just enough subtle clues beforehand). These things are nice to have but they are essentially icing on the cake - most important thing is you have a structure (the actual cake bit). If you have a clear solid structure, then you can put all the icing you want (or remove some). But if there's no cake....and all you're giving the audience is the icing...that is not very satisfying at all.

[Scimitar]

Good advice fella's.

I'd just like to add some things. try not to use long, impressive words to make your story seem more impressive. It is often better to use simple language that is directly relatable for the reader. Keep your audience in mind. Audience retention is key.

A good example of a book that uses simple language to great effect would be The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. It's a short book and I highly recommend it as an example.

The charm which simple language holds is a lot more honest than the pseudo-impressive charm which supposedly impressive language promises.

Last but not least, 5000 words is rarely a chapter in most novels, so try not to lengthen out your plot lines too much - or you will limit the content of your story.

[Muhaba]

as one author said: start your story on the first line. that is, don't start it too early or too late. another writer advised: choose a headline for your story as if it's a news item and use that headline as the starting point.


for example, instead of including the stuff about wanting somehting to eat, etc, you could just write:

nearly starving, bobby sat on the bench and bit into his beef burger. it was a dark moonless night and he was all alone on the street. a winter breeze blew over his face making him wish he had someplace to go. but being homeless, all he had was the bench and the underground. for now, this would do. just then a man joined him, sitting on the bench next to him. he also had a bag similar to bobby's from the same burger joint. the man took out his burger and taking a bite, said: i don't like beef... i like humans.

then before bobby could react, the man had jumped on him, digging his fangs in bobby's neck.

of course, you might then decide that the story shouldn't start that way. you might decide that the news headline for this story is: homeless man found murdered in mysterious manner. mad had fang marks in neck. And you might decide to start the story with the police surrounding the area and questioning people and a private investigator / detective, trying to figure out how bobby was killed.

another thing is that not all people preplan how their story will be written. some people like to outline everything, adding the meat later on. while other prefer to make the story as they write. (i'm the second type).

when writing, don't worry about the story or the structure or improving your writing. just write. revise and edit only after you've written it. at that stage, you might change the storyline, move around paragraphs, cut whole portions, and work on grammar. but if you worry about grammar or whether the story is good or not, it will never get written.

when writing, don't worry whether the story will be good or not. afterall, you don't have to show it to anyone or enter it in the contest. you can write simply for practice. if after finishing it, the story is good, you can enter it. and if it's not good, you can forget it or leave it for later revision.

Also make sure your story has lots of conflict. you'll have to find twists and turns here and there to make it longer and more interesting. conflict makes a good story.

i hope others will have more advice.

Writing exercise: write a few paragraphs for the starting scene of the above murder story.

[Muslim Woman]

:sl:


Write as u say . Keep it short and simple.

[Muezzin]

Just write the dang story. You can always edit it later.

[Muhammad]

For those struggling to find the right names for their characters, places and anything else, you might like to try:

http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/
http://www.namegenerator.biz/place-name-generator.php

[Innocent Soul]

Alhamdulillah we have great writers here. :) Please give more tips and some on deciding the title of the story as the story writing contest is going to begin.

[Muhaba]

Names should have something to do with the character. There are articles on how to name your characters. Just don't use names that are too common, unless required. Also, don't use similar sounding names or names that start with the same letter, because you may know your characters well and won't confuse them but readers will confuse the characters. For example, if you have a character called Jim and a character called Tim, readers will confuse the two easily. And that makes the reader get lost. And a lost reader will quickly lead to loss of the reader. (you'll lose the reader quickly). This is because readers don't like to be taken out of the story, to be reminded that they're just reading a piece of fiction.

Naming your characters with tact can increase reader satisfaction.

Of course, you can change your character names later. So you don't have to worry too much at the start.