Touching Your Audience Deeply through Viewpoint
My friend James Dashner has his movie The Scorch Trials out this week, and the audiences are loving it overall, but I suspect that if you listen in to the viewers as they come out of the theatre, you will hear the comment over and over, “The book was better.” I was just talking a […]
Powerful Openings
Is your opening powerful? If not, why not? I’ve been judging a huge writing contest this week, and had literally a couple hundred stories that came close to placing as finalists. These stories were good, the writing beautiful, but the story itself was often flawed—and usually in the opening. You see, in a short story, […]
Be Patient
Every author is impatient for good news. We’re all working toward something. You might be working toward your first sale, or maybe it’s your next novel contract. You might be trying to get a movie deal, or perhaps land on the New York Times bestseller list. That’s the way that it should be. You should […]
How I Hit Number One on Wattpad
How to Succeed on Wattpad
Have a professional looking cover. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is! That is how most readers on Wattpad will discover your writing, and the cover has to convince them it’s worth checking out.
Post as clean a copy as possible. Readers will forgive the occasional typo, but if the story is riddled with errors, it’s unlikely that your story will take off. With over 100 million uploads, the readers have plenty of other options.
Types of Transport
When the movie Avatar came out, I went to see it and wrote a little review on it. I said then that it transported its viewer to another world better than any previous science fiction film—and that because of that, it would be considered by many youngsters to be the “best science fiction film of […]
The Irresistible Novel
Two or three times a week I get asked, “Where can I find a great book on editing?” I’m always flummoxed by that question. You see, I’ve read dozens of excellent books on editing, and I always have to stop and say, “First, you can’t read just one book on editing. If you really want […]
Never Have Writer’s Block Again
The best advice I’ve ever heard Ernest Hemingway give is the advice I personally swear by. He said, “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck.” […]
The Importance of Finding Your Tribe
This spring I attended a writers’ conference in Utah. When I walked into the conference center, I noticed their sign said “Welcome to the Tribe.”Now, I know what a tribe is, but the word used to be limited to aboriginal groups in far-flung eras or countries. I know it’s become a buzz-word in social media […]
Writing Contests!
Writing contests are an excellent way to hone your skills and get noticed. The United Authors Association is a new non-profit writer’s organization with the principal goal of improving literacy. Bob Muench says, “We are working with the state prison in Draper to start helping their residents improve their reading and writing skills. We have […]
The Heart of Your Story
I was asked to read a screenplay over the weekend. It opened with two minutes during which it explained what a common household device was, showing how it was made in a factory. Then for three more minutes it had characters eating breakfast talking about their cultural heritage. I began to wonder when the story […]