What makes my book good? : A reader's advices and thoughts

Part 7 : Writing style

Oh, yeah, you need a really good story and a good writing style. Make sure you;

1. Don't leave a lot of spaces in your book's pages, it's annoying for Wattpad readers.

2. Update without getting too-late.

3. Don't use senseless sentences and vague details.

4. Accomplish the goals of your main character.

You don't need to be Shakespeare or whatever to write long stuff. Just talk to your audience either first person or third person narrative about the surrounding, the mentality of the character, what she feels about other people, her trauma and all of the stuff you want to tell about your character. Avoid;

1. Cliches

2. Too much description of body. Keep it mysterious!

3. Grammatical mistakes

Speaking of grammar, you can install Grammarly to the Word by its official website and type your story on Word and then copy-paste it to Wattpad web! 

Don't imitate other authors' writing style

Seriously. Don't. You have your own writing style. You can only unlock it if you write more. Copying is fruitless I'm telling it with experience. I have tried to copy but it turned out really bad. My own writing style is much more better than that. Even George. R. R. Martin had told that.

Write a chapter per day

Stephen King himself told this. Manage your other works and at least one chapter per day or minimum half of a chapter.

Don't refuse to kill/remove other characters if their use is expired

Yeah, don't hesitate. It makes things simpler. For main characters as well as for the audience (don't kill too much, just the right amount)

Make sure you make the characters' goals accomplished

If a person has a traumatic experience and his goal is to get rid of it and if you have arranged any way to make their personal troubles overcome, keep it going. Give them a lot of troubles and make the audience see how they grow through them. The character development makes essential. Don't write a person gets absent for a while and suddenly, the nerd is a badass. Make sure you show her personal growth. Don't make the characters die without their goals accomplishing.

Don't rush

Don't rush your story. Take things slow and write it all down and go with the flow.

Make sure every incident leads to another greater incident

Like, let's take a previous example. The guy meets the girl because they both rushed to helped the elderly woman. The guy and girl exchanged numbers but got estranged because of their work. They both got turned out to the adventure because of their friends. They both fell in love because they completed each other out like yin and yang. Make sure every incident has its own consequences and these are what makes the main characters get close. Directly or indirectly (like the above example) everything turns out to make the characters get together at the end. 

Make it realistic

By using the previous technique, it makes the story looks much relatable and realistic. Because, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, isn't it? That's how probably your mom and dad met. Their meeting was inevitable, everything worked out to their union at the end, by the fate or the external influences. That's how your unique story should be too. Don't make it an unrealistic fairy tale.

Make sure you plan everything out

For an example, for each chapter (previous example)

Chapter one -> guy meets girl in the moonlit beach

Chapter two -> they get back to their normal lives and explain their lives and their attitudes + personalities

Chapter 3 -> they both get selected to the reality TV show and why did they choose etc.

Like that, make sure, there is always an end goal to each chapter and make sure you achieve it.

Personally, I use that technique to my own novels so that I don't get lost when writing the book.

Give a fault to every character and gradually make it disappear (with reason)

Don't make your characters mary sues. Give all of your characters meaningful faults and make sure you step-by-step correct it with a bond (friendship or love)

Avoid plot holes by giving a logical reason to every plot hole

Yeah, plot holes make your audience question your story and make sure you have solved their incoming questions even before they can tell it. To do that;

Read your book not as a writer but as the reader

Just read it like you read a work that is not yours. Catch the errors and correct them. In this way, you can catch plot holes.

Anyway, this is how it all works for me. I guess it would work for you too.