Author Robert W. Walker challenged me to write 5 helpful tips for authors. Here they are.
1. Write, write, write! We write because we have to. We have to allow our creativity the avenue to find its proper place–expressed on the written page.
2. Unless you're under contract to produce a certain book and don't have the freedom to write the book you want, write what you desire, and in the genre you want. As the late, great, Joseph Campbell stated, "Follow your bliss." Campbell's quote not only applies to your life, but also to your writing.
3. Leave a chapter, or even a sub-chapter, with what some refer to as "a page turner," a dramatic moment in the story that invites the reader to turn the page and continue his or her journey through your story. This same strategy can be skillfully used in non-fiction, as well.
4. Do your research. One thing that every novel needs is credibility. Your story must be plausible, meaningful, and entertaining.
5. Make sure your dialogue is sharp, and real. Your characters must talk like real people. Your fictional world must seem more understandable and coherent to the reader than the world in which he lives daily. The writer has to be in complete charge of the fictional world he or she creates.
-Linda Pendleton
