Q&A for How to Write

Maybe try to listen to some music that suits the scene you want to write (for example some love ballad for romance scenes or hard rock for fight scenes) and listen to the song's lyrics. Reading books or short stories about the setting might help, too. You have to try out different things, but there's always loads of options. Use the world around you to inspire you.

Keep writing. This will improve with practice and a reflective, self-critical eye. Try not to self-edit too much as you compose, as this can stifle your creativity and keep you from generating material. Afterwards, review your writing. Delete any flowery or excessive figurative language, trying to keep similes and metaphors to a bare minimum. Work on including strong, precise verbs and specific nouns to give your text a cleaner, lighter feel and look.

Try to use a range of adjectives, but not too many. If you were describing anger, you could put something like, "I clenched my fists, scowling. 'How could she!' I shouted furiously before kicking a wall." This is more effective than, "I was angry because of what she did and I kicked a wall."

I did exactly the same thing, and I believe that the trick is to focus on one event at a time. Say you were writing a story about a princess getting rescued from a tower (original, I know), but you want the princess to fall in love with the prince, while also loving her parents who imprisoned her there, and she didn't know what to do. Focus on her emotions to start with, confused, in love, etc. Then move to the major problem: Will she run away? Figure out how it's going to happen and then map out how the story will move from Point A to Point B. Don't write a word of your story until you've got a plan.

A memo should be clear, concise, and about a single subject. When you write your memo, try to be as clear and specific as possible. Make sure your organization knows who the memo applies to, why it's being sent out, and what, if any, actions need to be taken.

Redundancy, when used wisely, can be an intentional literary tool. It's effective in creating surrealism or a sense of disbelief. However, it's a tricky one to master so it's generally best for writers, especially novice writers, to avoid it.

There are only so many ideas, plots are more or less repeated over and over again. Try changing a few things up, such as changing the setting or a few characters until you've got something original.

You don't always need a "she/he said" after every line. Take, for example: "No, thanks. I'm not a fan of corn dogs," she told him, her eyes avoiding his. "Aww, come on! You can just order something else! I really want Sonic," he pleaded. "Sorry, but I'd really like something else. We can go next time." "Yeah, whatever. Chipotle?" You know who's saying the last couple of lines - you don't need to attribute the dialogue to the speakers. However, in the first couple of lines, describe the fashion in which the person is speaking. Is he angry? Sad? Nervous? He growled, snarled, or grumbled are great for angry, while mumbled, muttered, and whined are better for sad.

Sit down and write every day. Writing prompts are some of the best ways to keep motivated, whilst still practicing your skills. Tumblr is great for this. Also, reading improves your vocabulary and makes you a better writer. Try to read from the writer's standpoint - how do they make everything sound so good? Inspiration is always great.

A quick and easy way of writing less forced is to not force so many words into one sentence. Instead of writing: "she looked at a rock in the distance while she sat down at the pier and drank apple juice", you could say: "she sat on the pier, drinking apple juice when she spied a rock in the distance." (This isn't the perfect example for all kinds of writing genres, so just go with what feels right.) For awkward writing, it comes down to the book. If you've set it in the past, just read more works set in the same time period and get a feel for the "wordage". If you've set your book in the present, go with what you've heard online, or from friends.

The best way to do this is to just write. Don't force yourself to write anything in particular. Just write. It's your story, so unless it's an assignment for school, just write whatever you want. And remember: writing takes lots of drafts, so if your first draft isn't as good as you thought it would be, you can fix it up.

Try to write as much as possible outside of school, keep working on your skills and making them the best as they can be. If you feel like you want harder work at school, ask your English teacher if they can give you harder tasks, or even let you work on different things than others. Especially if you have a main writing project, try to share it with them, and ask for feedback. You could also look around for writing classes, and there are plenty of online courses you could try.

One way is to gather ideas is from music. Find a few songs you really like, or that you feel have meaning in them and break them down to find what they really are about. Usually songs have many different layers to them. Gather many ideas and put those together. Another thing to do, is start with a person, and find them a name and appearance then expand the story from them, creating a back story, a life, and everyone they know.

Don't worry too much about it. People typically develop a writing style that is similar to other styles they've read. If you are worried, change some words or phrases here and there, and change the tone and structure a little.

Use synonyms and different adjectives. Be as descriptive as possible.