The Anti-Guide

How do you try to improve your writing?

I try to avoid old, stupid things.	17.5%	[ 2370 ]
I add new things.	14.7%	[ 1993 ]
A combination of both (if one more than the other, pick it).	67.8%	[ 9169 ]
Total Votes:			[ 13532 ]

[Squawk]

Be sure to remember that BETA readers and editors are for sissies.

[The Death of a Fly]

The best way to start a novel, or for that matter, a two-page long short story, is with six paragraphs of exposition and setting establishing. Hey, writers were doing it all the time hundreds of years ago! And in literature, EVERYTHING old is good, without exception!

If you have a character express an opinion about some social issue, it MUST be the same as your opinion about it! After all, if you have the character say THEY believe something, your readers will assume that YOU believe that same thing, because a writer would never make up stuff that doesn't apply to their own lives.

Alternatively, you can have the villain, or some unpleasant, incidental character express an opinion that is the exact opposite of what you believe, just as long as it's exaggerated to the extreme. For example, don't have someone support an act of warfare because they think it will ultimately lead to a safer world. Have them support it because they love violent wars and want the poor to die fighting them and also they eat babies.

If you write horror, don't bother setting up a genuinely scary atmosphere, just have your character think that it's scary. Maybe have them say something like, "I'd never felt this scared before in my life" because that subtly communicates that the place they're in is scary.

Write a short story that has no purpose except to "surprise" the reader with a twist ending. If you write scifi, make sure that twist ending is where you thought you were on an alien planet but you were on Earth, or vice-versa. Also, steal from the Twilight Zone.

Also regarding the twist ending: if you write horror, remember that no one reading your story will have ever read a horror story in their lives, or watched a horror movie, or gone outside on Halloween. So when one of your characters only shows up at night, never eats, and looks pale all the time, the reader will be incredibly surprised when you reveal he's a vampire.

Remember, every genre has magical eraser phases that keep you from having to justify what happened!

For fantasy- Magic did it!
For scifi- It was a space-time anomaly! OR It was a technological breakthrough!
For horror- It's inexplicable! Oooh spooky! (Bonus points if you also say "supernatural." wink

They're great! Use them as often as possible!

[IrkenMegara]

If anyone dares to tell you that your story makes about as much sense as an acid trip, sneer at them and say that it is merely all symbolic of such and such (death is usually a good theme), and that your critic is an ignorant plebeian for failing to see the true meaning of your tale.

(P.S. Don't do drugs, kids.)

[Kitmint]

Put Jesus and/or God in your story for no reason at all. That way, when someone criticizes it, you know it's just because they're Satanists.

[Atreas]

Modern Fiction:

The bad guy is ALWAYS asian...usually muslim...and works at McDonalds while plotting world destruction from his underground lair (usually near the Wal-Mart supercenter). Conveniently enough, he also has amazing sword skills and can move faster than you can blink. This means that no bullet will ever hit him.

Also, since he asian, all of Western civilization must resort to the threat of nuclear war, which sets into motion a chain of events that eventually overthrows the President and replaces him with a warlord the equivilient of Genghis Khan, who will miraculously balance the American national debt and lead us in skilled, tactical economic warfare long enough for at least ONE nation to recover in the postwar depression of WWIII.

Ain't that nifty?

[Slicey]

- Your villain always 'drawls' 'smirks' and 'sneers' make sure you attach those words after all of your bad guy dialogs lest the reader forget just how evil and snarky they are.
- Heroes always have a witty come back to the villain even if they are about to be chopped in half by a lawn mower or have just witnessed their parents brutal murder they must *always* get the last word in.
- Heroines must never ever be attracted to the bad guy even though he is unbelievably sexy and charming and in love with her despite his hither to soulless evil doings.
- Any female character must whimper regularly, usually while the villain is threatening/assaulting/kidnapping her OR after she has fallen and broken her ankle and the hero is attending to her wounds - she will always have gotten near naked at this point regardless of where her injury is.
- Even though your heroine is ultra intelligent, brave and can easily perform ninja high kicks on any random henchmen that attack throughout the story she is inexplicably over powered, drugged or fooled easily by the villain and whisked off to his secret lair - once there he must always provide her with a beautiful gown and fancy hair-do ready for the final action sequence when the hero comes to her rescue.

- Everyone's hair is shiny, even if there is no such thing as shampoo in your stories setting.

- If you need one of your charators to express some deep feeling or secret just get them drunk
- ALSO! its always nifty to have your main female get wasted and throw herself at the hero (though this would never happen while she was sober because she is an innocent and inexperienced virgin) the hero will be a gentleman and turn her down even if he has been a womanising pig up until this point - he knows she is 'special'

[The Death of a Fly]

Kitmint

Put Jesus and/or God in your story for no reason at all. That way, when someone criticizes it, you know it's just because they're Satanists.

Alternately, bash and/or make fun of traditional Christian beliefs, so if anyone criticizes it, you know it's only because they're rigid Bible thumpers.

Alternately, alternately, make the main character(s) pagan so if anyone criticizes it, you know it's because they're bigots. And you don't have to know anything about paganism to do this. And paganism and Wicca are the same thing.

[Lebki]

Any car in your story must explode instantly into an enormous ball of flame when it hits something else, even in something as simple as a fender bender. Because as we all know, this happens every time in real life. stare

Extra points if your protagonist crawls out of the car unscathed.

[Minion Ripley]

Mass amounts of magic can happen to anyone completely out the blue, no reason whatsoever. Not only does this allow your character to be the all-powerful, but it also allows you to set whatever backdrop you want for your story. Physics, once again, be damned!

Speaking of explosions, no explosion or show of untamed energy is allowed to be small. They must be frickin' HUGE! Anything less and you'll totally disappoint your readers.

Remember, writers, your entire audience consists of either bored 12-year-olds or horny people past their prime. They do not want any form of intellectual stimulation at all.

When your characters are still in school and/or the story is set in a school, you can pretty much skip any conflicts that are caused by schools. Classes? Teachers? Grades? Actual assignments? Those do not exist in your story world, so you can completely forget about them.

[LoneGothic]

You must NEVER heed anyone's advice -- especially this guide's.

Don't you see, they're trying to lure you away from your brilliant masterpiece of a story!

[Slicey]

[Luis Loriox II]

-Dont think up a plot, just go into writing random things that pop into your mind

-If a publisher tells you that your story is no good, don't use they constructive critism to fix it. Instead, shoot them.

-Everytime a main character dies, bring him back to life. No one will care if you have godly characters.

-Make the bad guy dressed in black and as tall as possible. Cliches are awsome.

-All female characters must have DD boob sizes

-Every character must be in perfect shape, have blonde hair and blue eyes. Make them so perfect that everyone who reads your story feels ashamed.

[Luis Loriox II]

Remember, your character can be a master of every type of fighting style and have 500 diffrent weapons but will still lose the first time he fights the bad guy. Make him go train for a year and come back later for vengence. Also, make sure to watch every KungFu movie ever made for the dialogue.

Good guy: I have trained for many years, now I shall kill you
bad guy: s**t. I spent the last year doing nothing of any importance and now I can't fight worth crap.

[Luis Loriox II]

Make your main character a black female, that way if anyone says it sucks you can say it's because they're racist and sexist.

[pythonesque]

timechaser

Talk about the heroine's hair and eyes in excessively poetic terms. Said hair and eyes must never be brown. Purple eyes are good. Use them whenever possible.

sweatdrop

-You hero(ine) must always be slim and trim. They can't ever be overweight, or weak, or anything like that.

-Everything has to be completely random and meaningless. I mean, who wants to read a story with a real plot?

((I love this topic!))