How not to be a writer: Write boring, static, and flat characters

what draws readers into a book? Is it the setting? Nah. The plot? It helps, but not quite. Characters? you betcha!

Who wants to read a story where the character isn't challenged to act, isn't going to change, or reacts to every event without taking action latter on in the story?

But the big thing to keep in mind when coming up with a compelling character is to write them compellingly. You might come up with the most compelling character ever, but can you write it in an interesting way? Watch how your voice in the story conveys the character you came up with.

Look for other resources on this topic in a Reddit thread that inspired this post:

IMO people get too caught up in coming up with compelling concepts they completely forget about writing compelling characters. What resources are helpful in that area?

How not to be a writer #19: Don't participate in NaNoWriMo

Everyone is different, and some writers don't want to participate in writing events or challenges. That's fine. The purpose of naNoWriMo is to help writers have a deadline and a goal, and establish a habit that will be the building blocks of their writing career, or solidify their existing ones.

Case in point, if you don't want to be writing consistently, and don't want help in establishing a habit and a routine, then don't bother trying NaNoWriMo 2017.

I've been doing NaNoWriMo since 2004, a vet. I didn't do it every year, but I did the first 7 years in a row, until life took over. Then I did it every other year.

I would love to do it this year, but I have a WIP story in progress, and per NaNoWriMo rules, you need to be writing a whole new story from the beginning. Right now, I'm at 25k words, and my goal is to write 80k words. That means I have 55,000 words left, and NaNoWriMo's challenge is 50k words in 30 days... so, I COULD join in and be a NaNoRebel. But naw, I'll be there in spirit.

Are you going to join in?

How not to be a writer #9: Don't read, TV will do it for you

TV is a great source of inspiration and storytelling elements to be used in stories we write. They are also a great source for how to write stories. Wait, what?

Television--whether it's on your TV proper or an internet channel like YOuTube, will never equate to writing in the sense that it doesn't show you sentence structure on a page. The word choices to describe a setting, an emotion. Writing digs in deeper than any shows ever can.

So, sure, watch some TV, but reading is much more important for writing as it will help lend a hand in shaping your style of writing. Only watch television if you're writing screenplays.

Otherwise, stick to reading stories.

How not to be a writer #18: Pass on your writing to someone else

In the last post, How not to be a writer #16, we covered routine. I mentioned in passing that you could pass on your writing if it is taking up too much of your effort.

Well, you do need yto put the effort in.

As writers, we can't pass the writing on to someone else unless you're doing ghost writing, in which case, that's different. The main thing is, your writing are your OWN words, your own ideas, our own style. No one else can do that for you.

End of discussion.

How not to be a writer #16: Don't aim for 10,000 hours of writing time.

Writing is not something you want to do if you don't want to take the time to write. To remain a mediocre writer, practice writing less than one hour a week.

There's some studies and analysis out there that show  who are masters at something have amassed at least 10,000 hours of practice time. That's about an hour and half a day for 19 years. 3 hours in less than ten years.

You have to be truly dedicated to what you want to do, because you're in it for the long haul. Write, edit, read. Though, for the most part, reading isn't counted towards that 10,000 hours of writing time, especially if you are not actively analyzing the book you're reading.

Practice one hour a week is 10,000 weeks, and by that time, you're dead. 192 years year old masters don't exist.

How not to be a writer #15: Always use passive voice

Do you want to illustrate a life of a character as boring? Illustrate his life in passive tense. Don't heighten action with verbs first and nouns last.

Use nouns first then action. Then you're on the right track to having a monotonous story.

How not to be a writer #14: Don't play with words

I've been reading J.K. Rowling's new books from Pottermore. Reading some of them gave me insight into her thoughts about the wizarding world she built. It's beautiful.

And some of that magic came from her playing with words, whether its to combine two foreign words into one (how she came up with Azkaban) is ingenious. It's really inspired me to start playing with words.

So, if you don't want to be a writer, stop playing with them. Don't stretch outside of your limited knowledge of what words can do for your stories.

How not to be a writer # 13: Literally only what you know

So, your day job is a software engineer? Great! Let's write a story about a man who goes to work and create the most amazing app for the smartphones. And the story would contain lines and lines of code from various stages of work in progress versions.

Nobody is going to read that,except in a computer science classroom.

Writing what you know means drawing from the life experience in your life. How do you eat? How do you express emotions? How do you live life? We put these experiences into stories ranging from the historical fiction to the high fantasy. None of which we could never experience but in our imagination.


So, don't write in a literal sense.

How not to be a writer #12: Order Mix Writing Grammar Your

Want you if as remain someone write doesn't who don't the heed grammar of.

Or rather,

If you want to remain as someone who doesn't write, don't heed the rules of grammar.

So, of course language adheres to a standard, and we all instinctively follow the basics of language in order to communicate our thoughts to one another. The finer points of language, however, needs to be adhered to by professional communicators. Whether that's a lawyers, marketers, technical communicators.

Imagine if we threw all the rules of grammar out. We would have a sentence like the first line above in this post.

Ignore grammar at your own peril. It can mean the difference eating grandpa and letting grandpa know dinner's ready: "Let's eat grandpa."

How not to be a writer #11: Tell, not show your story

This lady will tell you that a story told, not shown is off-putting. How do you describe the sky without saying a variation of blue color, or pink, or purple, or even pink and green? Tell that it's a sunflower without saying it's yellow.

Or the soft twinkling sounds of wind chimes when it's moving among the wind. Suppose a stranger finds himself walking on a path with all these things. These descriptions help shape a mood that help or contrast the story's true mood. Suppose the stranger is about to confront something terrible. Do you want to heighten the drama of the event?

Let's tell a part of a story.

We see  a stranger walking briskly on a path to his destination. It is a calm day, a day like any other day. He knows he has to face his enemy from his childhood. He paid no attention to the nature around him, and if he did, he might have taken comfort in them. All he thought was about the enemy who bullied and abused him as a child, as a teenager, and as a man.

He walked briskly, one hand in his pocket. in his pocket is a knife, prepped for the killing of his enemy or tormented him for so long. His eyes seeing only red with anger.

--- Now, suppose, we show the story ---

Our eyes drew to the stranger walking down a light brown path, surrounded by flowers of different colors--yellow, blue, pink. The midday sun dried up the dew around him. As he traveled on, he did not give attention to the windchimes of a small house almost hidden behind a cluster of bushes.  A butterfly scutted from one flower to another.

The man put his hand into his pocket, feeling the long blade in its scabbard.  He took a deep breath through his nose and out his mouth in a slow, measured way. He stared ahead, walking as fast as he could without raising suspicion by the house he is passing by. The stranger's face is taut with tension, his eyebrows furrowed together in deep rage, teeth grinding together as he recalled the torment his enemy caused him all his life.

"You will never amount to anything, stupid child," his uncle said, and gave a swift kick to his ribs as the child curled up on the ground, trying to protect himself.

"You are a fool! Destroying my farm with the fire!" he said, delivering a blow to the teenager's face.

"Do you really think you deserve any pay after what you did? You are never going to earn a living!" his uncle roared at the younger man. "A fool, like I always said you were!"


---

So, which one sounds more interesting? You tell me. Or, rather, show me. To not be a storyteller, to not be a writer, tell us and your story will be dry.

How not to be a writer #10: Never challenge yourself

Hobble along the path of life, never stopping a moment to see the beautiful sunsets stories provide to you. Never take in a beautiful sigh of fresh air the mountains bring, such great depth of souls' deep stories. If you are never honest to yourself, don't read stories that challenge your mind.

Thus, you never challenge yourself when you write. Dig in deep inside yourself and pull out what's meaningful to you. What is deep, what is dark, and what is shining straight out of your heart. What is it saying? What does your soul cry out for?

Never stop, and you will never know what your soul really cries for.

How not to be a writer #8: Don't include characters in your story

Characters! Who needs them in a story? If you don't want to be a writer, then you don't introduce characters. Not just people either but also other living things and inanimate objects. Whatever the subject of your story is, don't write about them. Write about the setting.

Having characters--living or inanimate objects, help drive a plot of the story. If all you write is the background, the setting which also involves politics of the country your character is in, then it will be boring. Being a writer involves characters, and they drive the story.

My challenge to you is: write a plot-driven story involving an inanimate object. You can personify the object.

How not too be a writer #7

Forget forming habits. There is no point to writing everyday. You have too many commitments that demand your attendion. Like keeping a house clean so roaches don't cone to feast. Or your job that pays the bills.

Once a month is all you can afford to write. Don't write every single day. Do you want to achieve your goal of not becoming a writer.

How not to be a writer - #6

How can you stop yourself from becoming a writer? By keeping all your thoughts locked in your mind, and never lifting a piece of tool to record down these thoughts that eventually turns into an essay, a dissertation, a short story, a novel, a play.

Don't bothere picking up your pen and a pad of paper to record fleeting thoughts. Don't take your phone out and write a short note about the idea you have that will bring the point home to what you are achieving.

If we don't use tools at our disposal, whether it's a typerwriter, an iPad, a pen and paper, Scrivener, then there's no way the world can read what your ideas are, what stories you have in your mind.

So, open up your wrod processing of choice, your favorite pen, sit down, and start writing. Write, whether you have 3 minutes or 3 hours. I have a 20-month old girl sitting next to me, and I never know how long I have to write these posts. Part of these exercises is to also get her used to her mommy writing on the laptop and teach boundaries ("No, no touching the laptop! Ahhh, you typed some weird letters!"

Humans have the ability to create fantastic tools to help us achieve things. It's time to use them.

How not to be a writer - #5

The best way to never become a writer is to never surround yourself in the company of other writers. Contrary to popular belief, most aspect of the writing craft is not done in a silo. Isolate yourself, and then you won't have much of an opportunity to become a writer.

Surrounding yourself with writers enables you to access many parts of shaping the stories you write. They provide encouragement, they provide feedback, they suggest tools, tips on how to organize what you are writing.

They also help you stay on track, and provide a sense of external accountability. This helps writers reach their goals.

By isolating yourself, you more than likely end up in an echo chamber. This can make the projects terrible to read. Ideas are not validated, unclear and confusing, and not as explored as deeply as it could go.

How do I mean by not exploring as deeply? When others give feedback, they can ask questions, provide their own interpretation in ways you never thought about and give you a fresh insight on things. It might even spark an idea about an unexplored part of a story.

Writing in company of others also motivates you to help writers improve their own craft. Doing this not only helps them but helps your own writing because you saw someone else's perspective, their stories, and it also inspires your writing.

Isolate yourself, and you won't have to worry about becoming a writer.

How not to be a writer - #4

Never write everyday. Or at all. By not writing everyday, you won't produce as much content, and you won't have to worry about needing something to write about. Or needing and wasting time that you can use to do something more useful to spend your life on. Like video games and web surfing. Those activities are useful, and if they are worth your time, then forget about writing. Why sacrifice any part of your day to writing? If you don't write everyday but some days, then why bother?

Writing inconsistently won't get you anywhere. To have the best chance at becoming a writer who publishes things, you need to be writing everyday, or at least 6 days a week if you can. You can start small, write a blog post everyday if you can't write something for your fictional story 9whether it be short story or a novel that you're working on).

That's basically why I started writing these blog posts. It's quick, raw, but gets me writing and held accountable by the world of internet.

So, to never become a writer, don't start a blog and start writing. 

How not to be a Writer #3

As breifly mentioned in the last post here, if you don't want to be a writer, don't read. By not reading, you won't get inspired by what you read. Reading is an ember, and the more you read, the more air is blown on the ember, and eventually start a fire.

This fire is the idea of your own story. Sure, it might have some elements of what you just read that inspired the story, but it won't be the same. It is your own spin.

After all, there is no "originality" as there are basically 6 stories. Man versus nature, man versus man, Man goes on a heroic journey, etc, etc.

So. If you don't want to be inspired to write a story, don't bother reading. That way you will never be a writer and think of new worlds and new characters of your own creation.

How not to be a writer - #2

In the next post of the series of how not to be a writer, of which the first post can be found here. For this post, we will cover the art of not daydreaming. It is important to never daydream because if you do, then you can succeed as a writer.

How do writers get ideas? One of those ways is to daydream, dream of worlds that don't exist. Dream up of strange animals, of strange, evil governments and dream of magical talisman.  When you read a book, you enter into these worlds and you start dreaming about them. The what ifs! The plot twists! The buildings and fashion!

That's why some love fan fiction so much, because they can continue daydreaming about the characters and the world they loved reading or watching about. That's why you also shouldn't read, but that's another post for another time. The topic here is about dreams.

Sure, there are pre-existing worlds we could dream about, but if you never dream up your own, then you will never be a writer. You will always be a fan fiction writer. Is that what you want? Nothing wrong with fan fiction, I'm a supporter of them because they let you practice writing. But they don't really let you practice world-building because that work is already done for you. That is the bad side of fan fiction.

THough, nothing stops you from building a new world with some of the characters of that world and make it yours. Just try not to be too obvious with what you are doing. It might be an enjoyable book, but people will always criticize you for copying characters straight up from someone else's work, a la 50 Shades.

So, dream. Dream a lot, and write down snippets of those dreams. Mine this information, and you will become a writer. If you don't want that, then don't dream.

How Not to be a Writer - #1

As a part exercise and part educational, I am writing a series of how not to be a writer.  At this point, this is all rough drafts and not polished, for the most part. This is in raw form. That's how you are not a writer--writing without polishing and putting it in front of the world for all to see.

Why is polishing important as a writer? No world-acclaimed or amatauer writer can write the perfect first draft. This draft is full of errors, stream-of-thought process where no self-editing is allowed. So many thoughts, most of them repetitive in the hopes of clarifying a though as best we can, needs to be cut out. There are also ideas that we write that shouldn't be there because it's confusing.

Not to mention the grammar, the spelling!

So, never polish your writing to make your writing stronger. This way, you will never become a writer that makes their living off what they write.