3 Writing Tips You Don’t Want to Miss from author Andy Zach

I used these 3 Writing Tips in each of my three comic paranormal animal urban fantasy books.

If you’re an author, you’ll want to know anything that’ll make your job easier. If you’re a reader, you may be curious to know how an author creates a book from nothing. Here’s the first tip!

3 Writing Tips: The First Tip – Plan Your Story

There are two types of writers: planners and pantsers, those who write from the seat of their pants. Regardless of how you get your first draft done, your final story needs structure the reader can follow. Here is one popular approach: the three-act story structure.

The Three Act Story dates from Aristotle who defined it for Greek plays. I think the key takeaways are first: make sure the reader knows and cares about the characters.  Second, the setting, place and time may be vague, but the threat or conflict should be interesting from the start, between the protagonist and his or her goal.

See my two previous blog posts for much more on plotting and story structure. The first link follows:

Free Plotting Lessons Here from author Andy Zach

And the next link is:

Free Plotting Lessons Second Lesson from Author Andy Zach

3 Writing Tips: The Second Tip – Pick the Best Point of View

The point of view is critical. First person point of view allows the reader to get into the main character’s head and read his or her thoughts.  But then the reader can’t know anyone else very well, except through what the character observes.

An author can flip from one character to another, but the transitions can be confusing for the reader. Pro-tip: confusing the reader is very bad, leading to reader loss, probably forever. So do the transitions clearly and well, or don’t switch.

A compromise is to use a limited third person point of view. This allows the reader to look over the shoulder of a character, even reading their emotions, but only see what that person sees. Then switching to another character is much easier.

The Third Tip – Have a Privacy Policy

Why does an author need a privacy policy? You don’t, if you never talk, or write to or communicate with fans. If you’re going to interact with fans of your books (highly recommended!), then you’ll need some rules of engagement. If you have a website and a mailing list, you must follow the European Privacy rules for European fans. These rules will likely spread worldwide.

If you don’t care about privacy violations and European litigation, just ignore this tip.

Your fun from the Internet is next

Let’s start with this cross between a cat and a bird of paradise:

I bring you the problems of being a shapeshifter . . .

Then there’s this simulation of a Martian overflight:

How do you like this next Henny Youngman gag?

And finally, let’s give this blog post a BIG finish!