Hints and Tips to Writing a Good Story

Hey guys! I've decided to give you guys a few pointers (if you feel you need them) to write a good story (not necessarily for fan fictions either).

I'll try not to give too many hints you've seen before! Like we've all seen "always use good grammar and punctuation" yeah, we get it! But what really makes a good story? I'm so glad you asked!

1. Whenever you're writing and you've got writers block you should put yourself in the place of your target audience. If you were reading the book, what would you like to see happen? If that's too cliche for your taste then do the exact opposite! Keep your audience on the edge of their chairs!

2. Keep a running mystery through the whole book of which you never truly reveal. No one is going to want to read a book that they think they know the ending to. I know it's hard and you want to tell your readers absolutely everything that is going on in your book but its best if you hold off!

For example: tell your readers a character exists, be it through a flash back or conversation and show that this character is important but never reveal too much like where they are now or what they did if they did something bad. Near the end, sure you can reveal everything but at the start, create mystery!

3. I don't know about you guys, but I love a little bit of humour in my stories! Even when my story is sad I try and add in a few giggle-worthy scenes to entertain my readers a little bit. If you can make them laugh they'll probably remember your story! (If its funny enough they might tell their friends and their friend will read it too, do you see what I'm getting at here?).

4. I have seen countless times (I too, am guilty - even recently) of straight out describing the outfit to my readers, or describing something straight up. Sure you can do it, I'm not going to stop reading if you do (please don't with mine) but its best if you don't tell the reader but you merely imply what's going on.

For example: if your character is wearing a tight yellow dress you can make another character literally say "yellow looks great on you!" Or "my dress is so tight it restricts all movement below my hips". Do you see what I'm getting at here? It kind of sounds better than; I'm wearing a tight yellow dress which is off the shoulder with black heels. I care but I don't, you know what I mean? It's kind of tedious and out of place, if you make it part of the story it can be less... Boring?

5. Slang. Okay? If you're trying to get a point across, sure, use it! People need to know that a character is a little bit "bogan" or "off the rails" or from a certain country but don't use it to excess. I am Australian and no, we don't say "throw a shrimp on the barbie" we do not even call them shrimp! And sure we say "g'day" but it is not how we greet everyone every single day! So don't make your characters do it!

There we go! My five helpful(or not so helpful) tips for writing a book! I think they're all pretty general and aren't zoning in too much on any particular style. So I hope they help you out!

If you have any questions of which you want to be added to the next chapter I am more than happy to do so. But, if I get no feedback that I'm helping out then I won't post again. I would also like to say I am guilty of committing the above crimes! We all do it! They're just tips if you want to improve, I guess I'm just a lazy writer at times. Haha.

I hope to be posting again soon because you appreciated it :)

Ta-ta for now! Xx