What are some good tips for teen writers?

Answer 1

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I don't know when this was posted, but I can help you still.

I've been writing for four years on one story, so I have a little experience.

If you have an idea, you can evolve it over time. I find that daydreaming about it will open up new things, but it's always good to have a good strong plot down first.

Then, write it all down. If you were to tell your idea/story to someone and just give them the basics, what would you say? Write that exactly in your computer. Then you will have a main storyline down to come back to later. Always stick to that storyline. It's ok to add scenes in there as long as they're relevant to the main course of the storyline. Try not to get too far off track.

When writing, think of how you want to do it. First person writing focuses on one person, which is useful if you want to use strong emotions or personal thoughts of a single person. You are limited in several factors where you cannot see other important parts of the story because the main character isn't seeing them. Second person usually isn't used in writing except in choose-your-own-adventure. Third person, in my opinion, is most common. A great example is Harry Potter, where you focus mainly on Harry and his feelings, but you can switch to other people or scenes because you're not chained to just Harry. In my book, you mostly follow the main character in first person until she has kids, and then it switches to third person to accommodate all three children and their story. (I don't know if you can do that, but it's my story so I get to make up the rules)

Then, think about the characters. My story began as a dream, so a lot of the characters were named in my head while I was sleeping. However, I added plenty of people later on. I have names from my pokemon game, neopets (don't ask), people I stalk over facebook that remind me of my characters, names I'd like my kids to have, and names from schoolbooks. Remember never to copy a real person's whole name - just take the first name and pray they don't find out that your serial killer character is named after them.

Describe your characters. I find it hard to remember to do that because I already know all my characters. Give your readers as much or as little information as you want, but remember that the less you give, the more readers will make up about your characters. I recommend writing down their personalities/talents/attributes so you can keep track later.

A huge one that I failed to do when I was young was to KEEP YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT You don't know how easy it is to forget what month it's supposed to be or what year. I keep forgetting that they don't have playlists in the 90s when my story takes place. I keep forgetting everyone's ages.

If you're going to make up a town somewhere, know how it's like in that area. Know what you're talking about. Readers can't stand it if it doesn't add up. Don't you get frustrated when you watch a movie and the people do stupid stuff or things just don't make sense and it just ruins the whole movie?

I'm a fan of fictional writing, so I'm just going to suppose you'd be too because most teens I have seen/come into contact with are.

Mine is a pretty Horror-based book, so I try to make my readers feel things that the characters do. When writing about situations, try to make you readers feel a certain way. Expand your vocabulary. Try to figure out the best words to fit in the right situation. A large vocabulary is your best friend. Use a thesaurus for help, but make sure it makes sense. Using big words all over the place doesn't make you sound smart unless it works and makes sense. If you're going to explain actions, make the readers feel it.

The feelings in a story make it come to life.

So does scenery.

When your characters go somewhere or do something new, describe it a little. Paint a picture for your readers, or they'll make it up on their own. If you want to show your readers exactly what you see in your mind, put it in words. That's what makes Gone With the Wind such a wonderful book - the right usage of words to describe things, people, actions, everything.

Dialogue. It's your friend.

Learn it, use it, love it, master it. When I started writing at age 12, I sucked at dialogue It helps characters a lot because it forms their personalities. Using the right adjectives can really show readers what's going on, and how the conversation is going. Don't hesitate to use italics for thoughts as well. Thoughts are also important to developing the main character.

Because my characters were 15 when I started writing and now they're 18, the dialogue over the course of the book magically has gotten more mature, which is cool because it almost proves how my characters have matured.

Remember: you're going to look back and groan at how bad you wrote something or how awful the beginning chapters are.

DON'T SWEAT IT. Don't go back and edit and revise.

Get it all down first.

When you're done, do it again.

Go back, throw things out, add things. Make it as full as you need it to be.

Don't make things perfect until you have the whole story down because if you do, you'll never progress. No matter what, it won't be the way you want it.

The next thing you know, you'll have written ten pages and the beginning sucks again, and you have to start all over again.

I HAVE redone my first chapters a few times, but that's because there were things I needed to get rid of that started to snowball my whole story. Pretend your story is like building a castle out of blocks: if the first blocks you put down (beginning chapters) are all tilted and unstable, the whole castle (the whole book) will fall apart. If you have facts you want to change from the beginning, don't save that for later. But if you have the story down and you don't like the way it sounds, leave it. By the time you're finished writing the whole story your skills will be much more advanced than even then.

I'll never be happy with my story, beacuse I get better and better over time, like you will.

I promise you, you'll suck at first.

I still suck compared to a lot of writers.

But do it the best you cna, and the best you can will get better with tons of practice.

Also a good writing warm up is handy.

Write a blurb of story before you get back into writing the next chapters. It will get you back into the swing of things.

That brings me to another point (I promise Ill finish sometime).

If you have a GREAT idea for something but it's in the way future of your book. WRITE IT DOWN. You'll regret it later.

At one point in my book I have 6 unfinished chapters. After three years it's one piece right now, a rarity, but don't worry if there's holes. You don't have to write it from beginning to end. You'll want to have the fresh idea on paper because if you try to remember it later, it won't sound as good (unless you're really lucky, but I haven't had much luck with that). If you get stuck in a boring part, it's a good idea to try that too and come back to that boring part later because writing something new and fresh will give you new ideas.

Ok, in simple terms:

- get a good vocabulary

- get people to help you by reading it and criticizing (I have had horrible luck with this. My friends won't read it all the way through for nothing, probably because it takes a good 6 hours to read at this point)

- don't worry about imperfections minus basic spell-checking until later

- WRITE IT ONE THE COMPUTER unless you don't have one/can't type well. It's SO much easier to revise, and if you get good at typing after some practice (which isn't a bad idea because you have to write a lot of papers in college) you can get a lot of thoughts down in a lot less time. You'll also go through much less pencils, and if you make a mistake with a pen it will be messy to have crossed out words all over the place).

- if you write it one the computer, BUY A USB. You'll thank yourself if anything happens. Spare the 8 bucks and back up your story. Update the usb every so often. Send the story to yourself or your friends through the email as you can access the file even if your hard drive on your computer gets wiped out.

- DON'T POST IT ONLINE IF YOU WANT TO PUBLISH IT

Also I recommend this app called Evernote. If you get it, all you have to do is save the book as a PDF and send it to yourself over email. If you access your email on your iPod/iPhone/iwhatever, open up the file by going to your Sent folder. Once it comes up, you can read it, but there will be a button up on the top that says 'Open in Evernote'.

Do that.

Wait for it a little bit to 'send changes' and then even without internet the book will be saved on there.

Work hard, don't give up, broaden your vocabulary, and you'll do good.

I spent way too much time on this question xD

because I spent over an hour on this, if you see a book in the store in the next five years called Day Versus Night, buy it, ok? I promise it will be good.