#mini-tip

You know when you’re writing and all of sudden you need to know the lifespan of a parrot? Save it for later. Don’t let yourself get distracted and stop writing. Avoid procrastination at all costs.

Reviewing your draft and find something off with your writing, but you can’t quite figure out what it is? It could be that your rhythm is off. Find the “music” within your words. Change the lengths of sentences, or swap out words with varying syllables to find the right flow for your writing.

This also helps with pacing issues. Have a fast-paced/intense emotion scene? Short words, but long sentences create an urgent feel. Use conjunctions to pull the sentence out even more.

Example:

Have trouble motivating yourself to write? Tell yourself: “Just five minutes. I’ll do this for just five minutes then move on to something else.”

Most of the time you’ll end up writing for more than five minutes. Getting the motivation to start writing is the hardest part. Once you get over that hump, you’ll be good to go.

You know all those random scenes with your OCs that you imagine?

Write them down.

Yes, even that weird one where they go to IHOP at 3 AM just because they love pancakes. Chances are, these random moments are going to stay swirling around in your mind, distracting you from the actual story.

Acknowledge that they exist, don’t fixate on them. Everyone has flaws. Is everything about your favourite story perfect? Probably not.

When writing, utilize the primacy and recency effects as much as possible. The primacy effect is the idea that people remember what they read first the most. The recency effect is the idea that people remember what they read last the most.