Week 6 Story Lab: Creative Writing

Why You Don't Need to Put Everything in Your Book

 By: Amanda Patterson

The main advice this article gives is: too many characters, too many settings, too many plots, and keep it simple. The author talks about how many writers, especially new writers, try to fit too much information into their stories which can be overwhelming for readers but also lead authors to not finish their books. I definitely struggle with this in all forms of writing (essays, this class's blog assignments, etc). I definitely struggle with adding as many details as possible in my writing. I do this because I overthink my words, feeling that the slight variances can convey totally different meanings. I think structure and flow are important, but too many details can be redundant. Readers tend to think of the larger picture when reading, so being concise is easier. This takes practice, and sometimes can be hard to do by oneself. I think peer reviews are a great way to help with this.

(found through a Google image search, can be sourced here)

Breaking Down Writers Block

Guest Post

This article does a great job breaking down what writers block is, how it manifests, and ways to help with it. I think the biggest contributing factors are fear of failure, perfectionism, deadlines/expectations, and not trying new things. People write for various reasons: for a class story blog assignment, a novel, social media, etc. The purpose of reading this website's blog posts are to help develop us into better writers, and while I think writer's block is a huge issue writers face, not as large of an issue to us. We are typically given some direction of what the assignment is (for this, read the articles and write about them, retell a story, etc). I think in the case of this course, this article can be applied more for trying to keep creative. I think keeping this creativity and trying to master new techniques helps us become better writers and keep assignments interesting.