Writing a Good Book: The Authors Guide

Chapter Two: More Stuff

Characters – Too alert and too aware – Here's something that's mostly seen in mediocre writings. Hopefully you don't see this much but sometimes a protagonist will spot something or figure out an insanely vague riddle within no time at all. Since it's not too common I can't think of a good example to pull from it's not seen too often thankfully.

But the point of all this is to explain that regardless of the context characters shouldn't be all knowing of the world around them ore the people either. They should question things and work to figure them out, not just already know them because some base instinct told them. Or a "Gut feeling", I seen that gut feeling cliché play out a bit too much in mystery novels to be honest.

Confidence: We are never born with the right amount of confidence to our approach on anything. As we grow we learn the hard way about how good or bad we really are at things. Some are too confident and are arrogant, this leads to an often heavy smack of reality when they try and fail at something or are shown up by someone better.

Not enough confidence in ourselves leads us to backing down from many if not all real challenges. This one is much more common and is easier to relate to. Admit when you were in the 6th grade algebra or maybe even geometry was a nightmare you didn't think you had it in you to move on to the next lesson and graduate to the 7th grade.

The right amount of confidence is something that should only come from a seasoned/experienced person who has done this or something very similar million times and learned by now they can do it: like hitting a bullseye with an arrow from 300 yards away for example.

Character Identification: Now when you start any story no matter what point in time the story starts (some start at the end and circle back around to the beginning and lead full circle) make sure that the readers have someone to identify with. Don't give us a faceless and nameless and body and expect us to care about them. We need something more legit, and in fact introducing anyone, don't matter if they will die soon enough, at the start should come in as early as possible. I'm talking the very first page preferable the first paragraph or even sentence.

Combat Sequences- This one is tricky and for the most part you just got to feel your way through it really. The best advice I can give is to let the fight flow naturally, become the characters in combat and move how they would in your mind and then write it down.

And remember no matter how powerful the warrior is, things like a flawless battle don't exist, unless there is supernatural or magical forces at play that grants them an insane upper hand that very few are even threatening to them. Even the lesser fighter is likely to get in a decent hit on your character if their skills are not so far apart. Also knocking people out in one hit, that's only in the movies/television that never happens in real life and if it does the person being knocked out from it will suffer from some brain damage.

Keep in mind to be very selective about your word choice when describing a fight, especially with weapons. You don't have to describe every action or the angle of a swing, instead use words like thrust, parry, and twirl: that's what they are there for.

Also you may think that having numerous and intense action scenes are cool but even in action movies or television shows they're not. What makes those really special fights cool or amazing is the build up around it, like so many events beforehand were leading up to this epic duel that will decide the fates of many lives. Having the occasional brawl in-between stuff to spice it up is fine but try to hold back on the larger fights to give them build up and anticipation amongst the readers.

Building Your Vocabulary- Honestly I am not the most articulate person, like at all. But there are still a couple ways I can tell you how to build your vocabulary though.

1) This was, funny enough, an idea that I used a long while ago but only went so far. It was also suggested to me in the comments below by Haylsn so I thought it rude not to add in here now. This way is simple enough, when you come across a shiny new word while reading and you don't fully know what it means, go look it up and then write it down on some paper so you yourself can use it later if need be. And hopefully after using it more and more it will become a natural part of your cognitive word processing when reading, writing, and talking.

2) Thesaurus.com Yup this place is a gold mind for searching around for either new words or finding that exact right word for the context. I strongly recommend this one, and though it may be a lot of digging around at times thesaurus has never failed me so far. Just make sure the word you're using is correct for your placement of it, thesaurus doesn't offer a full definition of their words but there is a link to click to define it which you should use to make sure the word fits in properly.

Do keep in mind that having a wide vocabulary to choose from is nice but make sure that you're using words which your readers would be able to understand easy enough. So if you're writing a children's book you won't be using words like 'articulate' or 'cognitive' to describe people or thoughts. Choose your vocabulary wisely based off your targeted audience.