Your masterpiece is finished! Or is it? Are you absolutely sure? Not one typo? Not one misplaced comma or quotation mark? Not one misspelled word? Not one misunderstood meaning? Considering that even one mistake can leave a lasting sour impression (or a terrible first impression), perhaps it’s time to seek out one final perfection-seeking review of your manuscript. But whether you call an editor or a proofreader depends on your precise needs.

There isn’t one right answer to the question of how many drafts should you write before you are done. Some writers plan and others do not. The only thing that might help is that you know what the ending is.

Everyone has a story. And other people want to hear it. Learn how and why you should share. You may find out that you are a true author when you start writing!

10 things that you need to know about creative writing? Well simply put, Creative Writing is not about taming the demon and keeping it locked up inside. It is about setting the beast free and entering into a surreal world where you can connect with your stories and characters. It is about making sure that you do not bind or restrict yourself but allow the thoughts and the ideas to flow freely while you pen them into words.

The first act break usually occurs around page 30 of a 120 page movie script, or, if you were writing an 85,000 word novel, the first act break should occur right around the 7,085 word count. The importance of this scene is to propel the character into the story by using plot points.

So you have your character, you know their background, you’ve worked on dialogue, but there is still something missing from your story. Have you taken a look at description lately? So often it’s missed or dumped all into one place.

To imagine yourself as someone who is different. Someone who longs to be free from the prison of your mind. A challenge to live, and to dream.

If you like to write, like I do, and you write for a while, you learn something that writers learned centuries ago, back when they first started scribbling thoughts on cave walls using dyes made from berries: Writing is HARD WORK. Let me take that back, writing is easy, good writing is hard work. It’s difficult to be entertaining, amusing, insightful, educational and informative.

If you want to write a good story, you need to have a good outline first. Writing an outline takes time and can be a bit frustrating especially if you’re not used to the exercise. It does get easier with practice, but I’ll share some of my tips for crazy outlining. There are 5 major elements of a story and I talked about Plotting and Characters in another article. Here though, I want to talk about the other elements; Setting, Conflict and Resolution.

The synopsis is mainly the plot of your story from the beginning to the end where there is resolution of conflict. Most people write a synopsis after they have already written the story, but if you have a pre-written synopsis it makes your writing much easier. I’m saying this as a ‘pantser’ myself; I write at the seat of my pants and usually don’t bother with plotting before I write. Still, I discovered that if I had my synopsis already written, it made the writing faster.

If asked whether there is a formula for writing romantic fiction, I would point to classic romance themes. No, they are not a cookie cutter formula where you can just exchange names and places and Voila! you’ve got a book. That would be plagiarism at best and serious copyright infringement at worst. That would be tantamount to a crime of passion. Here are three classic romance themes and how you can use them to craft your romance stories.

As the world advances in not only the realm of technology, but also in sophistication, so must the realm of science fiction change. Our creative thinking must evolve with the world or be left behind in the world of Retro Sci-Fi!