Wattmag Issue #5

Make Something Great

So you're a writer, believe me when I say that that is awesome. You live to share little bits of yourself with the world. You tear away pieces of your being as others drink it in as their life force. Your whole life revolves around giving even when your hands are crippled and your soul is bare. You starve yourself....

Oh - Did that creep you out? I meant to.

That's what makes someone a great writer - being able to suck in their audience within the first few lines. Holding their attention with something that makes them shake in fear or squeal with excitement.

Anyone can be a writer, but what makes your story great is the ability to get your readers to come back to every new chapter eager to read the new information. I think this is obvious but I'll say it anyways: Make it interesting.

No one wants to read a boring story with one-dimensional characters, cliche scenarios, and zero story progression. I know how hard it can be to actually stay away from being cliche because seriously :

Why wouldn't the bad boy fall for the nerd?

Why wouldn't the Rogue be the Alpha's mate?

Why wouldn't the Billionaire be a sadistic jerk who falls in love with his assistant?

It happens, all the time. It's somehow an acceptable basis for what makes a good story. Now I'm not saying you can't write it. By all means be cliche and write what your heart desires most. Make them fall in love - but do it in a different way.

Make the story great. Make the love hard. Make it seem so impossible that when the Alpha finally realizes that the Rogue is his mate, she's already gone - lost into a world he has no access to. Make the Bad boy really bad - not just the class-cutting-gang-leading-womanizer. Give him a criminal record and put him in Juvey. Make the Nerd a hard-ass. Not a pushover who bends over backward because he's the bad boy. And why do all bad boys steal bra's- Why can't they steal her favorite shoe? Why aren't they finding her phone and holding it as ransom? Send the girl on a wild goose chase for Christ's sake and make your story interesting.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Make your characters real. Like, so real your audience forgets that they're reading a book and completely falls in love with them. Make them believable - Yes, I know that you're not a 30-year-old male Billionaire working in a skyscraper in Manhattan. Or a 15-year-old hormonal teenager who just moved and their only neighbor is a hottie bad boy. Or a werewolf with abandonment issues, no friends and an evil council hunting them down.

So how do you come up with something realistic when you're aren't exactly in the situation?

Easy - you look around you. Draw inspiration from different things. This may seem counter-productive - but watch A LOT of Television. Believe it or not, all these characters that are written and portrayed on TV have been extensively researched to become what they are. Read other people's work. And although this may sound like plagiarism to some. I assure you it's not.

Give yourself a lot of different references. For example, a girl finding out she has magical abilities. Watch 8 different shows, read 10 different books, and when you're done; think about all the differences and similarities those characters had. Even if they were all in the same role- It was done differently each time. It may seem like a lot of work, or simply boring- but if you're doing this every day then you won't even notice.

This goes especially for the characters that aren't in your age group. Say you're 13- But you're deciding to write a Chicklit about a girl who's just moved to a new city, and ends up sleeping with a guy. That guy turns out to be her new boss. Now firstly,  if you're 13 I don't condone this - stick to your own lane before you jump the gun and get ideas that certainly shouldn't be in your head for a few more years. Regardless, you want to make your story good. So talk to someone. Watch a show. Read a book - but at the same time use your imagination. Put yourself in your characters shoes. Try substituting your own life experience into your story line and molding it so it fits into your story.

The best way to make your character real, is to be your character. Feel what they feel. See what they see. Breathe their breaths. As your fingers fly over your keyboard tears should stream down your face, because you feel everything that is happening and it hurts you. It hurts you just as much as it hurts them and that's perfect - because then you know that your readers will feel it too.

Whoa, I got really passionate there for a minute. Sorry!

As I'm trying to convey, you need to put forth real effort and emotion when writing. Don't just start a book because you had an idea and you thought it'd be good to write. Really write it. Get into it. Live it. But again, if you just want the bad boy to steal your bra, he can - but then maybe why don't you steal his boxers, or his XBOX? Get revenge on him! Don't fall in love with him - start a prank war.

Take chances when you write - don't stick to the norm. Think outside the box. Add twists. Shock your readers (In a good way). Make us believe that what we're getting is something familiar then flip the script. Throw us into something unexpected. Confuse us so much that we're not sure if we should laugh or cry. Give us Adventure. Give us a vampire who's allergic to human blood. Or a werewolf who can't shift. Give us a fairy who can't fly. Give us unrequited love. Give us tragedy. Give us hope - then smash it to bits. Give us something we can't get anywhere else, because it's unique and beautiful and irreplaceable. Give us something new.

Make something great.