“We Do Not Remember Days. We Remember Moments.”

I wanted to double check that “The Cherry on Top” was a short novel or novella and I found this on uphillwriting.org. I think it’s very informative and hopefully you guys will find it useful!

How to come up with a story title

By Writerthreads on Instagram

I’ve identified a few types of story titles, and I’ll briefly describe them below:

Common saying/phrase

Eg. When the Cows Come Home, Cruising for a Bruising

Usually, the saying might describe the events of the book or men’s something

Something with a character’s name

Eg. The Redemption of Fletcher Cheung (my old title), Harry Potter and the _______

Or literally the character’s name

Eg. Oliver Twist, Doctor Strange, Hansel and Gretel

A location

Eg. Schitt’s Creek, The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Secret Garden

Choose an location where a part of the plot takes place. It would help if that location has a unique name (eg. Earhart High School would be boring).

A memorable line

Eg. The Stars are Burning (my WIP lol), To Kill a Mockingbird

Use a memorable or important line, or a version of it. Bonus points if it’s in the first or last sentence of the book!

Use an allusion

Eg. These Violent Delights, The Grapes of Wrath

An allusion is a reference to or a phrase taken from an external source. The title usually alludes to something in the plot or a main theme.

If all else fails...

Use an unusual word

Warning: this makes the title less memorable, imo

Use a song title or lyric

Warning: copyright?? Also it might be cliche.

Now that we’ve covered the main types of titles, let me give you some advice on book titles;

Long titles

They’re hard to remember and hard to type/say, which reduced visibility. Try to shorten the title if you can :)

Make it interesting

Eg. Gone With the Wind

Titles that use poetic language, vivid imagery, or a bit of mystery tend to be alluring to potential readers.

Use alliteration

Eg. The Count of Monte Cristo

Alliteration is especially popular because it’s punchy and sounds good lol.

Anyways, this is all I can think of! Comment below your book title(s) and anything I’ve missed.

“It is madness to hate all roses because you got scratched with one thorn.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupére 

Writing Tip #235

If you want to get serious about increasing your writing output, you need to know what your baseline is. For a few weeks make a note of when you start writing, when you stop writing, the number of words you wrote, and where you were. Then analyze the information. You’ll quickly get a sense of if you write better in the morning or at night. If you write better at home or somewhere else (I know this isn’t as easy to do because of covid right now). Then when you can, write at the time and place that make you the most productive.

Writing Tip #209

With miniature narratives, have a gentle/delicate ending. You don’t need to have an explosion or anything dramatic, the story should gently build up to an ending that seems natural.

“On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.”

— Jules Renard

Writing Theory: Controlling the Pace

Pacing is basically the speed of which the action in your story unfolds. Pacing keeps the reader hooked, helps to regulate the flow of the story and sets the tone of the entire book. So how can we write it?

Genre & Tone

Really in any novel the reader has an expectation that the book will be fast paced or slow. Readers will go into an action novel, expecting it to be fast paced. Readers will pick up a romance novel and expect it to follow a steadying climb of pace as the story goes on.

Pace is a good indicator of how the story is going to feel. If you want your readers to feel as if they are in a calm environment, you don't place the events immediately one after the other. If you want your readers to feel some adrenaline, you keep the curveball coming.

How to utilise Pacing successfully

1. Give your readers time to recover

When readers are reading a fast-paced novel, they need a breather and so do you and your characters. By peppering in a few moments between peaks of fast pace, you are allowing your readers to swallow down what they've just read and allows you to explore it further. Consider this like the bottle of water after a run. You need it or you'll collapse.

2. Track Events Carefully

When planning your book's outline or at least having a vague idea of it, you have a fair idea when things are going to happen. Usually books have an arc where pace gets faster and faster until you get to the climax where it generally slows down. If you're writing a larger book, you have to space out your pacing properly or else your reader will fall into a valley of boredom or find the book a bumpy ride. The climax should have the fastest pace - even if you start off at a high pace. Your story always should peak at the climax.

3. Localising Pace

If you want to put your reader into a certain state of mind throughout a chapter or even a paragraph, pay close attention to your sentence bulk. Long flowy sentences but the reader at ease, slowing the pace for them. Short, jabby sentences speed things up. An argument or a scene with action should be quick. A stroll through a meadow on a lazy summer's noon should be slow.

4. Information is Key

When writing pace in your overall novel, the reader should be given more information as you go through the story. You begin any story estentially with the who, what, where of everything. But peppering in all the whys, you broaden the story and keep the reader feeling more able to keep up with everything. For example, in any murder mystery your reader is given the body. As the story goes on, your reader should be given more and more information such as the weapon, the where until you get to the climax.

5. Off/On Stage

All events of the story do not need to be shown on stage. When you want to slow things down, allow things to happen away from the readers view. If you show event after event at your readers, everything is at a faster pace.

Writing Character Appearance

~tstrangeauthor on Instagram~

Oh, to dramatically look in a mirror and discover an increasingly relevant truth about myself. If only I were the main character, but that role is taken by you. But yes! Character descriptions are needed to, well, imagine the character, and they can be very difficult especially in first person, so here are some ways to introduce descriptions and some ideas for what to include!

Mirrors. They’re valid, and they can be done right. However, they’re easy and as a reader, I can find it boring when a character is just staring at themselves in the mirror, admiring their features often in great detail because it’s usually not how people do it. 

Ok, it’s first person and don’t want to just start listing hair colors. Here are some other ways that are more exciting then a mirror but do the same thing!

Storefront’s windows

Puddles/Bodies of water

Glass orbs/ornaments

Polished things (floors, boots)

Makeup mirror (still a mirror, but good for focusing on more up-close facial features like if they’re important)

Other people’s eyes ( “I imagined how he must see me, just another red-scaled draconian with a fondness for gold”)

Screens (black phone/TV/computer screens)

Facetime/zoom (cue Google Meets flashbacks)

Photographs

These aren’t the only options obviously, just ideas :)

You can also bring it up just casually. Like “She struggled to tie her short-hair back” or “I could feel my skin burning from the sun through my shirt.” 

What to describe?

The most important thing as a reader (imo) is skin color/texture, size, and hair color/texture/length. These give me a very basic visual of a character, and tbh, most other stuff I just make up in my own head cuz I forget it and lets be honest, you don’t notice eye color on a first meeting.

*Remember to remind your readers throughout your book of your character’s physical traits

Some more unique/rememberable things to bring up in your characters appearance for a vibe

Nail polish/other makeup

Acne! (please give your characters acne or acne scars!)

Literally anything other than Smooth Baby Skin 0 People Have, and If They Do Then Lucky Them!

Clothing! Basic, but important! (Clothing helps with setting too! And character dev)

Piercings/Tattoos

Jewelry

Face structure

Smile/teeth

Body hair

Again, list is limited! Anything I missed/you wanna see, add it to the comments! Hope this helped some of you and catch you on the flip side

Writing Tip #190

Your characters should always have an agenda in every scene. Their agenda can range from something simple like wanting to get to work on time to something larger like wanting to save their mother from the underworld. Make sure you know what each character’s agenda is in every scene. Set two characters agenda’s in opposition to prompt action, move the plot forward, and set up some great opportunities for dialogue.

“If it gets awkward, let it be awkward. That awkwardness is something they created. You don’t owe anyone a performance of being okay when you are not feeling okay so that they can feel better about themselves.”

— Jennifer Peepas