Many authors choose to write stories similar to the books they read. This sounds, and partly is, right. But when their books jump out of the drawers that were being hidden for many years (for decades sometimes) and get published, the readers have the final say.
A critical question
Why do you write? Do you write just to satisfy yourself? Or do you write to make yourself and the people that fall sleep with your books in their hands happy? If your answer includes your reader's opinion too, then, no matter what, you love to write, so it's time to learn which literary genre fits you most.
How will this be achieved? In a very simple way. For a small period, until you become a successful and well-known writer, you have to write many different literary texts (romance, thriller etc.) so that you can let your talent unfold.
What you must know about your story
Some writers prefer to write letting their imagination travel them, without having any plan in mind. They place the words one by one on the paper and let their heroes take the decisions for them. Some other writers make a rough plan and then let their emotions lead them. Some other writers, however, do not even start to write a word if they don't previously know the following:
- the protagonist of the story
- his goal
- the difficulties he is going to face
- the antagonist
- the place
- the time
The only thing you have to do is to experiment.
Write some short stories using each of the three methods, to find out which of them fits you best, and use it.
Exercise four
If you had a long and busy day and all you want is to enjoy the warmth of your home, then you only have to stand in front of your library and follow my instructions. Otherwise, you can do what I do: Put a notebook and a pen in your bag and spend your afternoon in your local library, looking for your next writing idea in one of the books that are on the library's shelves.
So take either your favorite literature book or another one and turn to page eleven. Count one, two, tree... eleven pages and note the sentence there, in your notebook. Then write a Short Story that will captivate your readers, a short story that will begin with the sentence that you wrote in your notebook.
This exercise, like all the previous exercises, you can repeat many times in future, analyzing a different natural or weather phenomena each time and using another image and another beginning sentence.
Stay tuned for my next article, which will have more writing advice and a new creative writing exercise.
Good luck to all of you!
