How to Become a Good Writer

8 Important Tips for Writing Good Stories

These tips are from https://thewritepractice.com/write-story/

1. Write In One Sitting

Write the first draft of your story in as short a time as possible. If you’re writing a short story, try to write it in one sitting. If you’re writing a novel, try to write it in one season (three months).

2. Develop Your Protagonist

Stories are about protagonists, and if you don’t have a good protagonist, you won’t have a good story. The essential ingredient for every protagonist is that they must make decisions. Victor Frankl said, “A human being is a deciding being.” Your protagonist must make a decision to get herself into whatever mess she gets into in your story, and likewise, she must come to a crisis point and decide to get herself out of the mess.

3. Create Suspense and Drama

To create suspense, set up a dramatic question. A dramatic question is something like, “Is he going to make it?” or, “Is she going to get the man of her dreams?” By putting your protagonist’s fate in doubt, you make the reader ask, What happens next?

4.  Show, Don’t Tell

Honestly, the saying “show, don’t tell” is overused. However, when placed next to the step above, it becomes very effective.

When something interesting happens in your story that changes the fate of your character, don’t tell us about it. Show the scene! Your readers have a right to see the best parts of the story play out in front of them. Show the interesting parts of your story, and tell the rest.

5. Write Good Dialogue

Each character must have a unique voice, and to make sure your characters all sound different, read each character’s dialogue and ask yourself, “Does this sound like my character?” If your answer is no, then you have some rewriting to do.

Also, with your speaker tags, try not to use anything but “he said” and “she said.” Speaker tags like “he exclaimed,” “she announced,” and “he spoke vehemently” are distracting and unnecessary. The occasional “he asked” is fine, though.

6. Write About Death

Think about the last five novels you read. In how many of them did a character die? Good stories often involve death. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Charlotte’s Web, The Lord of the Rings, and more all had main characters who died. Death is the universal theme because every person who lives will one day die. Tap the power of death in your storytelling.

7. Edit Like a Pro

Most writers go through a process of three drafts. The first is very basic, the second is an improved version, and the third is polished and ready to share!

8. Defeat Writer’s Block

The best way to defeat writer's block is to write. If you’re stuck, don’t try to write well. Don’t try to be perfect. Just write.

Sometimes, to write better stories, you have to start by taking the pressure off and just writing.

How to Have Engaging Characters

Character creation: this video is about how we create characters that the readers will like and ones that have depth to them.

Other Handy Tips You Might Find Useful

Tips written by Mudga

Tip one-  To start a book, you have to have an idea. If you are struggling with writer's block, then writing
prompts can be a great way to start writing. Writing prompts can help you get ideas, or you can turn a
simple writing prompt into a whole story! In Fact i have put together some writing prompts.
Click here to see them

Tip two- Start with the title. Starting with the title is helpful! (Trust me. It is!) Most authors say that the
title isn’t important. And that they will come up with a title once they’ve written the whole book.
But the title is important! (I got this tip from R.L Stine, author of Goosebumps) 

Tip Three- A title should be short. It should also be exciting! If it's a boring title, then people are not
going to pick it up. For example, R.L Stine wrote a book that he called “Say Cheese And Die” Of course
people are going to want to read that!

Tip Four- The first sentence of a book should be exciting, and make people want to read more. A good
first sentence will make the reader want to know more about the book, and will keep them reading

Tip five- This is another tip that i learnt from R.L Stine. This tips is to start with the last chapter. I know it
sounds weird, because everyone knows that you start at the start, you don’t start at the end. But, if you
write the last chapter before you go on to writing the beginning you can make the end a surprise! If you
know how the book is going to end then during the book, you can make the reader think that something
else is going to happen. Then when the end comes, they will be super surprised and shocked! 

Tip six- Create good characters. Give all the characters a backstory, and make them different from each
other. If all the characters are the same, then it won't be very interesting.  Also, don't make your
characters perfect! Make them have things they are bad at, make them fail some time. Because that's
what makes your character seem more human and real.