I hope all you American readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! I know I did. It was wonderful to go back home and see my family and my pets! But most of all – the weekend signaled the end of my Fall Quarter at University… So that means, I SURVIVED FINALS. \(^o^)/

I wish I had that much dedication...

I took three screenwriting courses this quarter. I know – I’m a masochist.

And tugging in the back of my mind was the fact that Emerald Kingdom was waiting for me. I felt so bad that I hadn’t written anything for the story in days.

 

But I’m here now and ready to go!

So I’d like to give you guys some advice to fellow writers that I’ve discovered while on my little hiatus. I was aiming it more for screenwriting advice, but luckily most of these overlap for all kinds of writing!

 

1.)   Write every day. I know it can be a little tricky, especially if you have work, school or both – but it is crucial. I made a promise to myself that I would write at least a page or two every night before bed whether it is for my classes or for some short stories to keep the creative juices flowing. NaNoWriMo is a good example of having a deadline with a certain amount of content that needs to be reached per day. Did any of you participate? Leave a comment and tell me how you’re doing!

2.)   Keep going. This one can be a little hard to get one’s head around, especially if you’re so passionate about your project. It’s so easy to keep going back over the pages you’ve written and keep editing. But guess what – you’re not going anywhere! Keep typing and just finish it. You can always go back later. Trust me, you’ll end up rewriting the first ten pages of your story before you realize you don’t even have an ending and your deadline is tomorrow. And you’ll probably edit your whole thing about one hundred times anyway; so just spare yourself the agony. Speaking of agony…

3.)   Hurt your characters. From watching many of his productions, Joss Whedon has an unspoken rule: “If your audience likes a character, kill him. Or at least maim him.” Probably the most recent example of this is in Game of Thrones. Oh man, do people get trampled in that show. But I always come back for more. That’s what’s so great about it! As Kurt Vonnegut said, “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters are, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” Without that, the characters aren’t challenged and they don’t grow. If you’re not feeling particularly evil that day, you can always hurt them psychologically or emotionally. You have my permission to ruin a character’s life. d(^.^)

4.)   Raise the stakes. Things need to happen in stories, if you didn’t already figure that out. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, something always has to happen. In each little “chapter” that I write for a character, I make sure there is some sort of conflict that the character has to overcome. It creates a little mini-movie that also builds the character’s personality. Without that, I can’t make things worse and worse for the character to overcome in the grand scheme of things and then become something different at the end. Without raising the stakes, my characters can’t change – they, and I, become complacent.

5.)    READ. Author John Green said, “I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you’re trying to be a writer because it’s the only apprenticeship we have – the only way of learning HOW to write a story.” Read good books; read bad books; blogs (Look, you’re already ahead of the game!), articles, friend’s stories, scripts – just do it! You’ll learn what to do, what not to do, and how you would do it differently. Hell, read John Green’s Paper Towns while you’re at it! It’s one of my favorites.

Andromeda's best writer is Bleepblurp of the Ninth Sector. High five, buddy!

So there you have it! It’s a little short, but you’ve got the general idea. But don’t take just my word for it. After all, the best advice doesn’t come from anyone else but you. You can look up so many articles on how to be the best writer in the galaxy but it will never teach you what you can learn yourself.

 

Today’s question of the day is as follows:
What are you reading lately? I need some new stuff. I really should read A Song of Ice and Fire, though…

 

 

See you soon!
<3 Castiel

 

P.S. You might want to be on the lookout for a special sneak peek into the first chapter of the story with a little bit of art to go along with it! ^_~ More info on the way!