Creative writing tips?

My brain is fit to explode with all the creative writing knowledge I've scraped up over the years, and yet, somehow, writing is still difficult as heck. Unfortunately, no internet-given tip is going to magically make you better. Like everything else, you just have to be dedicated enough to practice all the time so you can improve.

But do take these tips into account. And sorry if I'm too rambly.

1. Plan

Mapping out exactly who your characters are, your setting, your theme, your problem, your motivations, your expositions, scenes, climax, endings, titles, and all that jazz will help you spread your story out and pace it nicely.

2. Read

Okay, obvious. But don't just read that gooey easy crap that makes you fell all fuzzy inside or whatever; read books from really, really great writers. The classics. The popular ones. Branch out. You can learn so so much from published authors.

3. Show, don't tell

Again, probably obvious. Instead of saying, "Sally was happy" say, "Sally's grin was as wide as the sky and dazzled like fresh unicorn sh*t."

4. Don't word vomit

With that last tip, watch that you don't overdo the descriptions. You may have a fantastic monologue that rambles on about the meaning of life, but if it doesn't fit, your reader will be bored to tears. Ask yourself this: Is it relevant to the plot? Is it in a fitting place? Does it give the reader further understanding of plot/setting/character? If the answers are no, cut it out.

5. Thesaurus

It's your best friend. Seriously. If I read: "his eyes were like shining emerald orbs" one more time I think I'm going to hang myself.

In terms of conquering too-fast pacing:

6. Read aloud

I totally feel you, man. Pacing a story sucks balls. I find it helps if, after you've written a chapter, you sit back and read it out loud, that way you can tell when you've gone too fast or too slow, and you can change it up.

7. Sentence lengths

Short sentences work best in intense scenes where you want to really suck the reader in. Since he has to pause after every full stop, they effectively slow down the delivery. Longer sentences link and flow together and work best for descriptions and shorter, less important scenes. The reader can skim over the whole thing in one go with only minor pauses, so they speed up delivery.

8. Punctuation

If you read a paragraph aloud and it sounds choppy or awkward, try jumbling the punctuation. A misplaced comma can eff up the whole sentence, and sometimes you don't realise how much better it sounds until you randomly cut it out. Play around until it sounds right.

And lastly:

9. Practice! And patience, grasshopper

Seriously, the best way to get better is to just write, write, write. Write until your hand falls off. Write until you cry. Write until you're effervescent with insanity and scribbling incoherent sentences all over the walls with crayons in your teeth and your toes because you've typed so much your hands are no more than mangled bleeding stumps. Or something like that. Even if your work is crappy and you hate it, it doesn't matter; you'll get better in time. Be kind to yourself and let those creative juices fester in your mind swamp. Don't ever be discouraged for too long.

Good luck with your writing and I hope this helps!

I was in the exact same position as you a few years ago! I always found my stories being 10,000 words maximum, because my plot moved too quickly. The best tip I could give you, would be to take it really slow and pre-plan the things you want to cover in that section of the story. If you're attempting to write a novel, splitting it into chapters really helps you to structure each section of the story. It's also a good idea to write out a character bio for each significant person in your story, so that you know the exact appearance, origin and personality and don't get them all mixed up. Reading your more complicated sentences out loud sometimes helps to sort out which word order seems to flow the best (unlike that sentence! haha) Good luck and happy writing :)

I'm happy that you're passionate about your writing but please don't think that teenage writing is a hopeless cause (I've been told this many times myself). Currently I have been published twice and I am 17, don't lose heart!

Pacing is a very hard thing to master and I'm sorry to say, only comes with practice. I recommend a lot of reading. A few years ago I ran into the same problem you did and I was on a mission to figure it out. Do you hand write or do you type? I used to hand write everything and I found out that by writing by hand my pace became very fast mostly because I couldn't see my writing laid out, paragraph by paragraph. If you're typing and pacing is still an issue it's really a matter of reading. It's easy to summarize a long book into a significantly shorter passage. As a writer you have to try to figure out what it is that made the book so long in the first place (at the time I called it expanding of the paragraph at the time). This expansion leads to things like dialog, thought processes/inner dialog, and description. In all honesty these things aren't really needed if you think about it. These devices are used to establish things like tone and pacing.

Specifically regarding pacing it's best to think of proportions. Like how a conversation (length wise) compares to the rest of the story. Is the conversation important enough to be relatively long when compared to the plot that follows? If not the conversation should be shortened. A conversation can be elongated by things like inner dialog or movements. All of these things force the reader to concentrate on what's happening. The longer they concentrate the more they will deem it important, thus slowing down the pace.

I'm sorry if this is confusing -_- pacing is kind of a complex thing that is really only understood with lots of reading (with pacing in mind). I think you'd benefit from reading Under the Never Sky (my first thought was Harry Potter 7 but that books is distracting in it's greatness). Under the Never Sky is a recent YA book that has two points of views and the pacing is decent. There's a lot of internal dialog so if you read it pay attention to how that changes things.

Keep writing, and don't think that just because you're young you can't write well!

-I really hope this makes sense since pacing is kind of an overall thing and a little abstract.

Tips:

okay lots of people are going to tell you to have an outline, plan everything out. I have to say that this is great advice for people who get off track but it is horrible advice for people who bore easily. If you're like me (I hate planning. It takes the fun out of everything) simply don't plan. Not to say that you don't have to do background work. Instead just plan your characters thoroughly. You don't have to put everything you know about the characters in the book but you should keep their back stories in mind. This makes dialog much easier. But make sure that making characters if the first thing you do! Do not make the plot first. The plot should always and forever be moved by characters. I as a person change my story it is not dictated by anything else. But you can have a setting dictate a character, a natural disaster for example.

As a writing exercise I was once told to wake up early (I know it was horrible) and to watch the sun rise. After It had risen I had to write about what I saw. Then I hid the piece of writing for a week. I didn't even look at it. Once the week was up I did it again. I watched the sun rise and then I wrote about it. I then compared the two pieces of writing. The idea is that as a writer you are always evolving. As a writer that has written often though you should be able to keep a constant tone and be satisfied with it. If you like both pieces of writing then you're able to do that, keep a tone. If not it's best to keep looking for your own unique voice.

Read poetry. Even if you never plant to be a poet it's always good to read poetry. It's taught me a lot of things about description and it's connection to tone. It is also always a good idea to read about the author of the poems you read. More often than not the history of the author is vitally important to understanding the poem.

Word choice although aggravating is really important. Word choice changes tone and tone evokes feeling from the reader. Creative writing tends to deal with things that the reader is unfamiliar with so it is a good idea to evoke familiar feelings with familiar words. Lets say you use the word pine tree, one of the first thoughts that pop into your head is Christmas or a calming place like a forest. It doesn't matter that your setting could be in a desert, the fact that you've mentioned pine trees makes the reader remember things that involve the word, thus evoking a warm/calming feeling. If instead I had used a different word like a tree heavy with bristles, this evokes an entirely different feeling, one of fear.

first of all, teenage writing doesn't suck. and don't degrade yourself by saying that!

-u should start keeping a journal. a free-write journal. something where you just write. no revision.

-to improve your flow, ALWAYS create an outline when writing stories. like the detailed, easy to understand outline, not the one your teacher forces you to complete for homework

-do peer editing. don't let your friend who knows nothing about writing peer edit your work, but someone with more experience(like a teacher).

-take short breaks between writing. that usually works for me.