Writing Templates¶
Online vs Print Writing¶
| Writing for Online | Writing for Print |
|---|---|
| Use quotation marks to show words as words. | Use quotation marks only for audible speech. |
| Use numerals for all numbers. | Use the golden rule for all numbers. |
| Avoid italics. | Use italics for thoughts, nonverbal speech, emphasis, or written letters. |
| Use bold for emphasis. | Avoid using bold. Use italics for emphasis. |
| Use brand logos, colors, and font to write online materials. Use heading 1 as the title style to reflect | Use standard text and heading styles for writing printed materials. |
Short-Form Writing¶
Be culturally current and engaged.
It is paramount that you are continuously culturally engaged as a short-form writer. Part of why this is necessary is to stay up to date and stay linked into the cultural evolution of modern language and discourse.
Short-form writing is an art piece.
Short-form writing isn't just literature, it's also art. It has visual and phonetic importance.
For readers to commit to short-form content, it needs to be worth their precious time.
People want to consume media that matters to them, that they feel deserves the little time and energy people have right now.
Less is more.
Obviously. Trim the bushes. Cut down nonessentials. Then cut down some more. The words in short-form language need to be a picture, a graphic, a sigil of the exact meaning and syntax you want to express. Never a sentence.
Writing for current society means understanding the ebb and flow of trends.
Trends are social viruses. They are transmitted socially and they come and go in different forms and phases. Society is a metaphysical ocean of thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Pay attention to the underlying thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Maybe vampires are a trend, but why? Check the waves and tides of the societal ocean to understand the why of trends and you'll understand your society better and write for that society better too.
Novel Writing¶
I am a huge planner and I know it's possible for pantsters to write great stuff, but I personally believe that for me, the best writing comes from detailed and extraneous outlining.
Create a Reference Sheet
The plot and characters of the story itself should be organized. Creating a master reference sheet will help make sure it is organized and highlight where more organization is needed.
Make & Keep Promises to the Reader
Every piece of written content has an intent, promises that are made to the reader that needs to be fulfilled and satisfied.
Spell it out.
Novels like to have spelled-out words rather than symbols, abbreviations, etc.
- Spell out numbers unless they are complex or use decimals
- Spell out money and "dollars" etc.
- Spell out abbreviations
- Use "to" instead of an en dash between numbers
- Say the state name instead of the abbreviation
Focus on what matters most.
A lot of great art is actually quite blurry around the edges. Not all the details matter so spend your energy on the ones that do. Above all, be the reader as you write and focus on the details that the reader will see and not so much on the details you care about as the god and creator of this universe.
Add secrets and mysteries.
People are intrigued by secrets and mysteries, but not secrets and mysteries that have no answers, or rather, no satisfaction of any kind. People want to enjoy a sense of completion, they want to come full circle, they want to figure things out, not just have things to figure out.
Readers love pain.
But not because they actually love pain, but they love the things that come around pain. They love justified pity, they love the validation that comes when you've been wronged and someone somewhere understands and feels for that wrong—even if that someone is the reader of this pained character's book.
Readers want everything to be delicious.
Even their vegetables. Authors can make that happen. They can even make fight scenes delicious. They can make explanations delectable. They can make conflict taste divine. Sometimes it's not that what your consuming is good for anyone, but in some way or another, it's delicious anyway.
Facilitate Reader Insertion.
Reader insertion is the bible of writing long-form literature. The reason anyone dedicates their precious time to long-form literature these days is because in some way they are mentally able to insert themselves into the story or into a character's shoes. Reader insertion is the lifeblood of what makes good writing good and good writing work so well. People want to be seen, they want to be understood, they want to be felt for.
Readers want to feel emotions when they read.
They want to feel all the things. They want to feel pain, sadness, anger. The biggest fun of reading is feeling everything from rage to passion. The idea that evoking positive emotions will lead to positive results does not exist in writing. Our readers want to feel it all.
Maintain the Reader's Trance/Suspension of Disbelief
The trance, the suspension of disbelief, whatever it is something happens when you're reading that puts your brain into a certain kind of mental space.
Things in a book need to at least make enough sense that it never takes the reader out of that trance. Being jostled out of the astral plane can be jarring and at best, annoying. When something snaps us out of that trance, that willing suspension of disbelief falters and we begin to feel "we're being lied to."
Elements of the story become difficult to digest, to wrap our minds around, and the fabrication of it all becomes more apparent. Obviously all of it is a fabrication, but that willing suspension of disbelief isn't really done on purpose.
It's a willful suspension not a forced suspension. The mind of the reader gives consent to be entranced and roll with the flow of the story when done right.
Be wary committing to unforgiveables.
Be wary of putting things in your writing that can't be easily forgiven by your reader. Like the dog theory, you don't ever kill the dog because it's hard for the reader to forgive. If you think about it, this just falls again into the idea of the readers trance and not breaking it.
Common Writing Mistakes¶
- Jumbled timeline
- Switching between past and present tenses
- Lack of an overarching theme, point, purpose, message, lesson
- No promise made so no expectations or hopes were ever formed
- No kept promises, whether promises were never made in the first place or they were made by accident and forgotten by the writer