Plotting. You need it. I need it and every writer needs it at some point. Not because you can't figure out the story in your head but to get over the boring bits. I love writing all the exciting bits but often the action is choppy because I literally skip the boring bits. I blame my dyslexia for this but I need the plotting to make sure everything is there that is needed. I could tell you how to plot but I've found there is no wrong or right way to plot. I often change the wa

Time to write your bad book. Okay to this point most of your writing has been about scenes you see and the cool things you want to write but you'll get to a certain point when you lose the drive to finish the story. This is normal. You can continue on with this stage for awhile and I recommend that but the next step is the bad book. Task 7 Start off with a Mary Sue. A character that is just like you but perfect. Put them in a situation where everything in their life is pretty

Don't force the issue. Don't try to plot just yet. Like I said before you are still building up muscles. Imagine your character in different situations and write up the scenes. Don't try to thread them together until you have finished a few scenes. Task 6 Write scenes of your character doing different things. These should be the movie trailers you see in your head when you think of your story. The exciting stuff that keeps you awake because you are so buzzed over writing your

Now that you can write a scene without being completely boring you can start writing a story. Now before you get excited I will tell you now this will not be a story you will finish. You are still building up your writing muscles. But let us start with a character in a place doing something. I don't care who they are or where they are or what they are doing. You don't have to figure out the story yet because what they are doing should lead to the story. Here is an example of

Biology. Most of our life is automatic. We breath without thinking. Our heart beats and we blink without a second thought but when it comes to writing don't forget the body. Task 4 Physiologically we react to certain things in a very physical way. Describe what a persons body would do under these circumstance (and I suggest cheating and googling it) Fear Anger Excitement Worry Tired Love Pain Exercise Cold Crying Surprising isn't it how our body reacts to all these things. Yo

Task 3 Dialogue is essential to making a story seem real. When was the last time you went hours without talking to the other people in the room. We are social creatures so we are always talking. Small talk mostly but if you wrote small talk that would get boring. Leave out the hi, hello part of the conversation. We know how that works so don't repeat it. In this task you are going to use dialogue to start a story. Have two people talking. Have the first character ask a questi

Check out the first post in this series but if you have it is clear you have now mastered the showing vs telling that is essential to writing. Task 2 Setting the scene It is really boring when someone describes a setting and it is pretty but nothing much is happening. It is better to experience a scene through the eyes of your main character so this is the task I also get students to do to start a story. Have a person in a place doing something. Let me explain the beauty of t

I recently tried a free online class for writing. I was rather disappointed. I was hoping for activities that would push my writing. Unfortunately it was too generic to challenge me but then it was free and I really shouldn't complain. But I thought I can put up my own writing tasks for people who want to improve their writing. I'm completely self taught but I'm also a teacher so I've taken what I've taught myself and broken them down into lessons. Task 1 How to show not tell

You would think 12 books in they would run out of things to write but SEALS of Honor: Devlin is just as good as the other books in the series. Okay this isn't the height of literature but it delivers exactly what it promises. We have our happy endings. We have cute guys running around being heroes. We have the added bonus that the damsel in distress is super smart and saves herself most of the time. We have some action and the bad guys getting their just desserts. So it doesn