This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Mary Kay Andrews is a New York Times bestselling author. He new book Ladies' Night is out now.
1. Give
yourself a firm deadline for finishing your first draft, and then establish
daily word quotas to help you get to your goal.
2. Characterization. Know your characters and what makes them tick.
3. Plot. Keep it moving! Try writing out plot points so that your story isn’t static.
4. Think about your ending as soon as you write your hook (beginning of story.) A good ending should circle back and refer to the book’s beginning.
5. Don’t re-write yourself into oblivion. Even when the going is tough, keep plowing ahead to the finish line, and then you can go back and polish and revise. Remember, you can’t fix what you haven’t written!