Writing Tips and Advice I Like

I get all kinds of tips from other writer's blogs, and mostly they have been very good tips.

We've heard the same ones over and over again, like:

Don't use similes
Don't use adverbs
Don't use passive voice
Show don't tell

But here are ten others. I forget where I got them from, but it was probably from someone Nathan Bransford linked. Just letting you know I didn't make them up. But for this post and for this blog, I did take the liberty to shorten the explanation.

1. Write the sentence, not just the story
-this means that you have got to pay attention to each individual sentence, as opposed to the whole story. Make each sentence unique and special.

2. Pick a better verb
-we've all heard this one before. Use the best verb, and hopefully, you won't need an adverb. (Although I still say adverbs have their place.)

3. Kill the Cliché.
-if you want to be original, and you do want to be original.

4. Variety is the key.
-change your sentence structure and lengths, so they don't seem the same throughout your manuscript.

5. Explore sentences using dependent clauses
-this was a great tip, which I never heard before.

6. Use the landscape
-not only to describe your scene, but your characters and your action.

7. Smarten up your protagonist
-meaning the mc can give you a lot of information by knowing what's up.

8. Learn to write dialogue
-this of course is part of the craft.

9. Write in scenes
-don't skip to another scene before the one you're on is completed with a good break.

10. Torture your protagonist
-this is something Donald Maass stressed in his book on writing the breakout novel. TENSION on every page.

Compare those to George Orwell's Writing Advice:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
-Yeah, we got that one by now.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
-I agree, but there are exceptions, see rule no. 6.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
-I realized this is particularly true for the word, "the."

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
-This has been drilled home by now, too.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
-good advice, especially when you write things about science, and in both of my first two novels, and my wip, I do.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.
-there are always exceptions to every rule.

KEEP WRITING!!