Writing can be hard! A lot more difficult than a lot of people think or even realize. That’s why I created this post! This is a beginner’s guide to creative writing (fiction) that goes over tips, tricks, and basics for the art of creative writing.
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Text Version
So, you want to be a writer! But more specifically, you want to be a creative writer. That could be anything from a short story that takes 10 to 15 minutes to only a few hours to read to a full-length novel that takes days, weeks or sometimes months to read.
Since I aim this video towards beginners (spoiler alert everyone has been a beginner in their writer journey at some point) this will go over the basics and stuff that’s good to know along with some extra tips. These tips aren’t focused on screenwriting or poetry, but you may still find some help in this video with what I will talk about. With that being said, let’s get into the video.
What is creative writing?
The first thing we’re going to talk about is what creative writing is, and you may think that it’s a simple answer. You’d be correct!
- creative writing is original writing typically fiction or poetry that is used as a creative outlet and this allows people to express their thoughts and feelings in their own creative way
So, like I said, creative writing is a very simple thing at its base and you just need to learn it to be able to tell your own stories.
Why write?
Now you might wonder, why write?
There are a multitude of reasons someone like you would want to write.
- Stress Relief
- Emotional Outlet
- Preferred Medium
- An escape from the world around you
- Many, many more
There are many more reasons, but you can have your own. Everyone has their own. I have my own, so do any authors you see around the world publishing their books for everyone to read.
For me personally, the main appeal to writing would be making characters and worlds and stories that no one has ever seen before. While none of it is technically original because everything has been done by now, especially in writing. It’s just the feeling of freedom with the characters and everything else you do that brings me towards writing.
Everyone has their own reasons to write, and you have your own, just like I said previously. Your reason is always going to differ from anyone else’s, so find that reason and roll with it
Fundamentals
Now we’re going to move on from telling why you should write into what you need to know to write something that people will love. These would be the fundamentals of writing and everyone has their own list of fundamentals in their writing and other forms of art, but what we have here is my list of fundamentals for writing. The fundamentals on my list are:
- grammar and spelling
- plot
- conflict
- character
- setting
- tone
- theme
- point of view
I have different reasons each of these are on my list of fundamentals for writing and what I’m going to do now is slowly, or quickly rather, go through each of the terms on the well my list of writing fundamentals.
Grammar and Punctuation
Grammar and punctuation are the basis of language. You need to know how to spell correctly and you need to know how to do the grammar of your preferred writing language. Without grammar and punctuation, no one will look at you like a proper writer, because when people think of books, they think of proper grammar, proper spelling, the world and the characters in it. Some people may even not read at all if they see that the grammar and spelling is not at the level they would expect.
Plot
Plot is one of the three building blocks of writing. Plot moves the story forward. The plot is what happens. However, I don’t like to look at it like that. I like to look at the plot as what happens to the characters and how they change throughout the story. I got this thought process from another user on YouTube named Abbie Emmons. She has taught me a lot about writing. The plot is what happens to the characters. How do they change? It’s important to go through that because without a plot, why do your characters exist besides just existing in an empty world full of nothing?
Conflict
The conflict ties directly into the plot. The conflict is what the heck is going on in this world. You could have a good guy and a bad guy. Typical antagonist and protagonist. These two characters have a conflict of interest and they bash their heads together throughout the story. The protagonist is trying to stop the bad guy, or the antagonist and the antagonist is trying his best to slow down the protagonist. Without this conflict again, there would be no reason for the adventure or the story that the characters go on to happen and without conflict, your book will be very boring to most people.
Characters
Characters are the second building block of writing. Characters fill your world. You may have plants, you may have animals, but your characters, your protagonists, your antagonists, your side characters, supporting characters, these fill your world and fill it with life. Without these characters, well, who’s going to move the plot forward? Why does your world exist without characters? You can’t have a plot because there would be no one to push it forward. There would be no world, because why would you make a world when there are no characters to fill it?
Characters are what I consider to be almost more important than the plot of the story, because you can have an amazing plot that sucks people in and makes them love the world you make but who’s going to want to read about boring characters who are one-dimensional, or are annoying, or are sad all the time? With the characters you have to make them live, make them real, make people resonate with them because if you don’t someone may put the book down because they just don’t like the characters you’ve made.
Setting
Next is the setting or world building. This is the third and final building block of writing. Now the setting is the world around the characters, like the kingdoms, the countries, the mountains, the forests, the valleys, the sun, the gods, religion. All of this is packed into your setting, which you have to slowly ease into the reader’s mind. You can’t just info dump. No one likes info dumping. If that’s an issue you have, then I recommend you practice changing that. But your setting is where your characters live. Without a world, there are no characters. Without a world, there is no plot, because where is the character going to live or where is the plot going to take place? You can’t just have a plot in characters but not have a world because if you don’t have a world, what’s gonna happen?
Tone
Next is the tone. The tone is a bit of a difficult topic to cover. You have bright tones, bright, happy-go-lucky tones. You have darker ones too. The tone of the story helps the reader understand the story more. If you’re going to be having a comedy, you’re less likely to have dark tones or anything to make them think otherwise. The tone sets the stage for everything.
Theme
Your theme is in every book you read. Every book has a theme. A theme would be what the story is about. So a coming of age story would be a character coming of age. A hero’s journey would be a theme about a hero saving someone in need. Or to narrow it down more, the theme might be why would you help other people? The theme could be to become who you are and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.
There are endless themes you can come up with. You can have one theme or you could have one theme with multiple smaller themes dug into your story. Without being as high up as the three building blocks to writing, the theme is still one of the most important things to writing. It is something you have to learn how to fit into your story as you write or as you plan to make sure you get it in there and give the book a sense of purpose with your theme.
Point of View
Finally, we have the point of view. The point of view is not nearly as important as all the rest, yet it’s still important. It says who it’s told from what it’s told from. There are three different points of view. You have first person, second person, and third person. Each of these are divided into two or three different terms, which I will go over at a later point in another post. The point of view also includes what character you’re looking through. First person you’d be looking through the character’s eyes directly. You are them. Third person would be watching from a distance.
First person would be I, me, or we. Second person is you. Third person is he, she, it. Depending on what perspective you choose, it changes how you write the story, and that is important to know. It is very important to choose the correct point of view or the point of view you want to show throughout your book because it will change their voice. It will change how you write because their voice dictates you. You don’t dictate the characters. So that’s why the point of view is so important.
Extra tips
Next up, we’re going to be talking about some bonus tips I have for you. We’ve gone over the basics and the fundamentals of writing, but now I have some tips to share with you.
As a reminder, any of these tips I give are suggestions. They are not set in stone. They are what work for me. Different tips may work for you, so you should experiment with what you like. See what you like and go through with those.
Read often
The first one I have for you is to read more. It’s simple to say read more, but why do you want to read more? Well, reading gives you the insight into what people are doing, what a book should look like. As you read more, you get more fluent in different things, such as well, writing a book.
If you read more, you get more of that knowledge at a pace that’s faster than if you didn’t read. If you can’t read or if you don’t feel like reading, don’t force yourself to read. Whenever you can and whenever you feel like it, read a book. It can be relaxing and two it can help you.
Don’t compare yourself to other writers and authors
The next one I have is to not compare yourself to other writers or other authors. This is a doozy. You want to be better so you read but then you think, oh my gosh, this person writes so much better than I do! Don’t do that. That’s not good for your health and it’s what brings imposter syndrome, which no one wants to deal with. So don’t compare yourself, just do your own thing.
Eventually you’ll have it down on your own, and you’ll you’ll be happy with what you’ve written. That’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter what someone else does or how someone else writes; you are the only person you should make happy with your writing
Don’t delete your words. Instead, set it aside in another document.
Do not delete anything you write. You can take it out of the draft you’re writing, but if you do that, I recommend putting it to the side in a different document, or on a different folder, or on a different page of your notebook. Keep what you write. It may become useful in the future. You might need to go back and take something from what you’ve written before and you didn’t like.
Don’t edit right away
Don’t edit right away. Some people may think, well, I edit right away. I just do it small bits! That’s fine. That’s how you do it, if it works that way for you, awesome! Like I said, these tips are options they are not needed for you, but here is why I recommend not doing that. What it can do is bog you down in writing.
So if you’re on your first draft and you absolutely hate that new 10th chapter you wrote, don’t go back and edit it yet. Go forward because editing is going to have to happen, anyway. Why bog your writing down when you can speed through the writing process and be done with your book sooner instead of being stuck editing a chapter for a month before you move on to the next one?
Try to find a writing group or community
Next, try to find a writing group or community. You can find these on discord, on Facebook, you can find them on the nanowrimo site. You can find them anywhere on the internet if you look. There’s also probably some writing clubs around where you are that you could attend. A lot of them are free, some of them are paid for, however you can find a ton of them for free. These groups will help you come to terms with your writing, help you improve and help you do all of that.
I found a community a few years ago on discord, and I met one of my best friends there and we have been talking writing for over two years now. You can find some of that too. I give a ton of credit to my friend, and she knows who I’m talking about. That friend has helped me so much with writing, so to that community I found. That community helped me level up my writing a few years ago, which was exceptional, and I would suggest it for anyone looking to write.
Have fun!
My last tip is to just have fun! That’s what you’re doing with writing. That’s what art is for! For you to have fun!
What now?
Now you may ask what now? I know all these things and I know some tips, but where do I go from here? Well, I have a suggestion for you! You can start writing however you’d like, but here’s what I recommend.
First, pick up a pen or pencil or open your laptop and you just want to start writing. It may be bad, it may be awful, but that is perfectly okay! Nothing is perfect, everyone starts somewhere. Even if it’s bad and you just start, you’ll get better at it as time progresses, just like anything else in this world.
During these beginning stages, you might think about giving up, and that’s normal. Every other author and writer have had the same issue as you before. They kept pushing and pushing and they got better and better, and now look at where some people are. Multi-millionaires with their writing, however, they’ve also felt like giving up at some point. They’ve made thousands of mistakes. It’s been a difficult run for some of them, and it’s taken longer than others, but they haven’t given up. They keep going and that’s what I think you should do, because if you keep pushing, you’ll get better at it, but again, the most important part of this is to have fun.