FEATURED AUTHOR - E. J. Wenstrom believes in complicated heroes, horrifying monsters, purple hair dye and standing to the right on escalators so the left side can walk. She writes dark speculative fiction for adults and teens, including the young adult dystopian novel Departures and the award-winning Chronicles of the Third Realm War series (start with Mud). When she isn’t writing fiction, she co-hosts the Troped Out and Fantasy+Girl podcasts. As our Author of the Day, she tells us all about "Mud: A Dark Fantasy…
Read more
Answers
2 Don’t be afraid to rewrite things that doesn’t work.
3 Read your dialog out loud and listen if it sounds natural
4 Don’t become discouraged if it is difficult, if it was easy everyone would have a bestseller.
5 Work on an outline first
6 Keep an eye on your pacing
7 Save the editing for later
8 Start short if you can and hone your craft
9 Get feedback
10 Read a lot
1: Learn the so called author 101, the basics of writing, grammar, and WHY readability is mandatory.
2: Practice a bit to either form your free flow, or follow the academic formula of structured approach.
3: Learn from your ordeal, as in example the kinda writing you excel with can be more important than the newbie longing (maybe you loved novellas, but your readership only appreciates your flash-fiction length, or full novels instead.)
4: Do some copycat stuff, so you learn to fluff-up and rewrite stolen ideas into a legal version, but do not mistake such for real writing (any ghostwriter does more).
5: Find the mandatory balance between marketing, time for yourself, writing, and maintaining your readership.
6: Survive, enjoy, boast with all the bestsellers, which I certainly will never outmatch. ;-)
7: In the long run staying true to yourself (your writing style, genre, characters) will at minimum create a secondary readership. Learn to handle the money aspect AND the readers you care about. Repeat, what I wrote as 6: ;-)
You have to love your own story otherwise it will become a chore and you will give up.
Don’t feel like you need to spell out everything for readers. Keep them guessing
Some of the best writers have very simple and straightforward sentences. Don’t try to be Vladimir Nabokov.
Make writing part of your routine and don’t skip days.
Before starting set some milestones for yourself and then stick to them without fail.
Always use active voice
It’s fine to take a break when needed
Worry about editing later, that’s the job of a good editor and not a writer