Writing Tips

Ladies and Gentlewomen,

How many of you are writers? Are you new to this experience? Let me give you a few tips I've discovered along the way that really help my stories.

(Admittedly, I'm not too terribly experienced, but here's what I found)

Make an Outline
Man do I hate this. Boy do I hate this. I hate it so much. But believe it or not, it is very helpful. Making an outline or summary organizes your thoughts and writing. It clears your path ahead so you know for sure where you're going. Admittedly, outlines are subject to change. In fact, not a single story I've written has not been tweaked and edited as per storyline in some way or another. But it's a good thing to do, nonetheless.

Balance dialogue and exposition/description
Not something I'm good at, but necessary. You don't want too much talking or your reader will end up confused. Then again, too much exposition kills brain cells. It's boring. So make sure to equalize both of these.

Don't use the same word many times
What I mean by this is don't say the same word twice in a sentence or in one close following. It sounds cheesy. For instance, "She shot towards her target, shooting past it" sounds dumb. "She shot towards her target, flashing past it" sounds much better. I have done this myself in some of my stories, and I pretty much facepalm myself a lot during editing.

Edit
This is rather obvious. No one is perfect, so don't expect to just dash off a story and expect it to be popular. There'll be mistakes, I guarantee it. There have been many in my own writings. So go back over them and edit what you can. Give it to your teacher if you must, I'm sure he/she will be thrilled to edit it for you.

There are many others that are important to do, but these are a few I actually learned through sweat, blood, and tears. The rest I learned through school. So if you really want a good writing base, take a grammar or actual writing class. Believe me, it helps a lot.
Adios for now, folks.