Writers' Cavern

I s there any single proven formula to write a gripping story? As you have guessed, no. Here are a few elements which I feel makes a story great. HOOK: Dangle an irresistible curiosity before the readers within the first few chapters or the first 20 pages. You might have the best dramatic twist in the history of literature unfolding on page 107 of your book. What use is it if someone replaces your book in the shelf after going through a few of the initial pages? Literary agents generally appoint someone to go through the slush pile and try to find a piece of work that is publishable. And chances of them going through each and every page with patience till page 107 is non-existent.  CHARACTERS: Make your readers invested in your characters. And how to do that? Make them mysterious, make your readers want to read on and find out what is going on in their heads. I will be doing a detailed post on character development in the future. CONFLICT: Great literary ...

As the title of this post serves as an ample preamble, let me share with you a few sketch pens to help you make your 365 pages of 2018 more colourful 😊 ·       TRY USING A HABIT TRACKING APP : If you’ve never tried a habit tracking app before, give it a try in 2018. There are a ton of these out there. The one I’m familiar with is Fabulous . It is designed to help you build, maintain and track your new habits. And, I find that using such apps is useful, especially to a writer, because the act of marking down when you make progress in your writing creates a streak. And when you look back on that streak, you won’t be comfortable breaking it. As Peter Drucker once may have said, “What gets measured gets managed”. ·       CREATE PRE-PLANNED BLOCKS OF WRITING TIME IN YOUR SCHEDULE: The power of focusing on one task for a long, uninterrupted period of time is unfathomable. But a lot of times it’s real...

Here are the notes I took in Daniel Jose Older's class on  SkillShare . He talked about the fundamentals of storytelling: Character, Conflict, Context and Craft. Hope it helps. Character ·           Have a crush on your character. ·          Mention what details about them matter to their fellow characters. ·          These details will also matter to readers. ·          Your character must have a desire – it’s the engine of your story. ·          We don’t actually have to like a character. Conflict ·          Backbone of story. ·          Crisis is the element of conflict. o    What’s at stake? o    Why does it matter? o    What’re the consequences? · ...

B asically there are two types of writers: plotters and pantsers. A plotter is someone who writes down his ideas before writing the novel. A pantser is someone who writes by the seat-of-the-pants . They have a general idea in their mind and they just go with it. And the interesting fact is that you don’t have to be 100% a plotter or 100% a pantser. You can be both. It is important to figure out for yourself not only which one you are but to what degree. The truth about the titles is, there are a LOT of steps in outlining your novel. Way more than I could fit in this post. I will highlight the most important ones. ·                      SPARK: It is the moment where you get an inkling of an idea that you can incubate into a book. It could be a line, quote, character or some kind of situation. It varies from person to person and manuscript to manuscript. At this stage, write a p...

I was in high school when I wrote my first draft. I fell in love immensely with literature after watching Harry Potter series. J K Rowling convinced me of the magical power of literature to transform people’s lives. Ever since then I’ve been practicing the art of writing. Naturally, I have made a lot of mistakes as a young writer, which is understandable because I was totally new to the whole writing thing. And I want to share with you a few of my mistakes so that you can hopefully avoid them. Here we go. ·  THOUGHT EDITING WAS SIMPLE: Changing commas here and there or replacing words here and there to make the sentences sound prettier is not what editing is just about. It’s a lot more detailed. The first and foremost trait you must have while editing is patience. You need to prepare your mind for the possibility of striking out chunks of texts and re-writing them or even the prospect of starting from scratch. Yes, you heard me right. ·   DEADLY DEADLINE:...

Na tional   No vel   Wr iting   Mo nth is essentially a writing challenge. The idea behind it is to challenge writers across the globe to finish a 50,000-word novel in a month. While many of you are probably already prepping and getting psyched for the big event, this is my first year participating in it and I would like to share with you a few tips which I’ve learned from published authors. Here we go. ·  HAVE A PLAN : You don’t necessarily have to make a detailed outline. And what making a plan or prepping might mean to you will totally depend on your style.   If you’re 100%   pantser, maybe prepping just means knowing the basic premise for your story. Write a one sentence pitch before you write the draft so that you can ensure that your focus stays intact. Refer it while writing so that you can keep to the point of the story. And that still leaves the door to pantsing wide open, if that is what you want to do. If you are a hybrid writer,...