Hex's Creative Writing Tips

[Hex]

• Expand your vocabulary! Having trouble remembering a word or action? Think of a simpler word to describe the same thing and then look it up in a Thesaurus.
  
  
• Break up large posts into smaller, more readable paragraphs that focus on individual ideas rather than long strings of text.
  
  
• Be descriptive! Don't just say that you walked over to the "____", think about the smells, sights, sounds your character experiences as well as what they are thinking or feeling. The more effort you put into your writing, the more complete and accurate of a picture the reader will get when they read your stories.
  
  
• Use Spell Check and revise your grammar! We're not writing essays for school here but it is really enjoyable to read a story with minimal grammatical/spelling errors. If you rush your post and don't take the time to revise, some of your mistakes may confuse or mislead readers and not get your point across. Remember your stories represent you and your ability, the more polished you make your work, the more memorable and respectable you will be as a writer.
  
  
• Include pictures! It is so fun to see a picture and be inspired to create a story around it, or find a picture that really speaks for everything you have created before finding it. If you have any photo manipulation software like photoshop you can even customize your pictures to be even more specific. Sometimes even just cropping the image and changing the background colour will make your character all that more unique.
  
  
• Personalize your character sheet's layout! If you don't know html that's ok because wiki has it's own code that you can use to customize the colours and sizes of text and position of the elements on your character sheet. From centering titles to changing the text font and colour, there are tons of little tweaks you can perform to match the appearance and/or personality of your characters.
  
  
  Your limits stretch as far as your creativity so have fun and create something amazing!

[Gintoki]

I like these tips, especially the " including pictures " one. I haven't even thought about doing that and it's certainly a great idea to make a post more interesting.
I also liked the one about being descriptive, I must admit that I often could use more detailed environments, emotions, ... in my post and this tip reminded me of that.

Thanks for the tips & reminders Hex

[Ashivirsthargon]

I have mixed feelings about descriptions, but that may just be due to my personal preferences.

I do agree, like Hex says, that writers should be thinking about adding descriptions. It does help to picture the scene and just makes for a more interesting read than raw, clinical reports. I also liked the reminder that sounds, smells, etc. can all make for a helpful description.

At the same time, I think it's possible to put in too much description. Although I enjoy both of these writers, Tolkien and Jordan both come to mind. Tolkien with his paragraphs describing the look of a hill and Jordan with amazingly detailed descriptions of clothing - everyone's clothing.

Too much description bogs a narrative down in unnecessary detail and can constrain the reader's imagination too much. I want to get across the things necessary or helpful to picturing the scene, but I don't need or want to control every detail in the reader's mind. I like the reader's mind to fill in the gaps with their imagination.

Once again, I'm not disagreeing with the tip at all, but I do think it's good for writers to strike a balance between between descriptive and overdoing it. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

[Aneira Haimati]

I really like this advice, and am just seeing the thread for the first time.

I very much agree with Ashivirsthargon that there is such a thing as too much description. It's something I have had to tame in my own writing, and still do. I've learned from great writers that some of the magic is in leaving something to the readers' imaginations. Tell just enough to create a spark, and that spark will become a flame in each individual reader's mind, and take off all by itself. Plus, as Ashivirsthargon said, too much description can just distract from the flow.

With that said, I love Hex's advice of remembering all the senses when you're thinking about descriptions. It can be interesting to hear about smell instead of just sight, etc.

And I also love the thesaurus advice. Even some simple words can be a lot more powerful in place of others, and really give some flair to writing.