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Hellooo, everybody! So you wanna write a book, hu? That’s awesome. I'm excited for you.
But I'm also terrified, because writing a book is hard as fuck and you're probably gonna lose
your mind. The writing process is complicated. There are so many steps along the way, and it
can be really overwhelming. So today I'm helping you out and hitting you with the ten writer hacks
that will make the writing process a little bit easier. These are tips and tricks that I employ,
or that friends of mine have used and found very successful. Hopefully they'll be just as useful
for you. Before we get started, I wanted to give a big shout out to Skillshare for sponsoring this
video. Skillshare is an online learning community for creators with over 17,000 classes in creative
writing, painting, marketing—the works! All of their classes are divided up into easily
digestible chunks, and premium membership gets you access to every single one of them. It's
amazing. Skillshare is all about helping creators like writers expand their craft,
which is why I'm such a huge fan. I even have my own Skillshare class available, that's all about
how to grow and market your author platform. The folks at Skillshare have something special lined
up for you. I'll be discussing it at the end of this video, so stick around. First,
let's go through the ten tips and tricks you should know if you wanna write a book while
still keeping your sanity intact. Number One (1): For realistic conversations, write your dialogue
straight through without any narrative. A lot of writers struggle with making their dialogue feel
authentic and giving it a natural flow. And quite often shifting back and forth between narrative
and dialogue plays a huge part in this issue. Your narrative is your writer voice: it's professional
and correct. Whereas dialogue is your character’s voices: it's messy and real. Switching back
and forth between the two can result in clunky dialogue, or boring conversations that go nowhere.
Instead, when you come to a dialogue heavy scene, ditch the narrative and write the conversation
straight through. No pauses for description or body language, no dialogue tags, just the
voices. This allows you to craft the conversation naturally and without any interruptions. Then you
can read through it and eliminate anything that comes across unnecessary or forced. Once the
conversation is up to your standards, that's when you add the narrative and dialogue tags. Writing
conversations like this will often make your dialogue way more natural, and a lot quicker to
craft. Number Two (2): When writing conversations featuring a large number of characters: color
code. A lot of authors write ensemble casts, which means having to navigate dialogue featuring four
or more characters at a time. In order to make these conversations less overwhelming, assign each
character a color. For example: Tobias’ dialogue can be red, Leila’s can be purple, Orion's can be
gray, and Delphi’s can be blue. Color coding the dialogue will clarify who is speaking at any given
time, making it much easier for you to follow. And it'll also let you know if anyone's been left out
of the conversation. Has a particular character only had one line? Maybe they don't need to be
in the scene. Maybe they don't need to be in the book, period. Once you finish the exchange,
you can switch the color scheme to black and move on. Number Three (3): For spotting mistakes,
lulz and awkward wording: read your manuscript out loud to an audience. Everyone knows that reading
your manuscript out loud is the easiest way to spot mistakes. Problem is, it's super tedious.
Sometimes writers will have a program read the content out loud to them, which can work, except
these programs don't usually take inflection or tone of voice into consideration. Thus a great
writer hack that can subvert all of these issues is to read your writing out loud to an audience.
You don't need a literal audience. It can be just one friend or one family member. Not only
will this help you spot all those pesky mistakes, but it'll also give you an outside perspective who
can tell you if the scene was interesting, or if they were intrigued. It'll also help build your
confidence, you're forcing yourself to share your writing with another person. And the more you do
that, the easier it'll become. Number Four (4): Struggling with physical descriptions? Remember
F.E.S.H.O. F.E.S.H.O is an acronym standing for figure, eyes, skin, hair and other. Figure means
the character's body type: are they tall and muscular, or are they short and curvaceous?
Next we've got eyes which mostly refers to eye color but you can also include shape and size.
Next is skin, because describing skin color is a must. Then we've got hair, which refers to color,
length, and texture. Like a short blonde bob or long auburn curls. And last we have other, which
refers to any defining features your character has like freckles or tattoos. If you're ever not
sure how to describe your character's appearance, just remember F.E.S.H.O and your fo sho get that
description written. That was stupid. Number Five (5): Struggling with setting the scene? Remember
your five senses. What is your character hearing? The crashing waves or the laughter of passers by?
What are they touching? Maybe they fell down and all they feel is hard, gritty dirt beneath
them. Do they taste anything? Are they stuck in a hospital tasting blood on their lips? Next is
sight, which is the most obvious one. Do they see lush green trees or a cloudless blue sky?
And lastly is smell. Maybe they're inundated with a fixed stench of rotting corpses. You don't need
to include every sense, because sometimes certain ones aren’t super relevant, but tapping into them
is a great way to get a setting nailed down when you're feeling stuck. Number Six (6): For passive
voice, fuck the ‘by zombies’ test, and just use a passive voice checker. Everyone knows that the
number one suggestion for handling passive voice is the ‘by zombies’ test. Tack the phrase ‘by
zombies’ at the end of a sentence, if the sentence makes sense, then you've written in passive voice.
If it doesn't, you're in the clear. Problem is, due to sentence structure and other variables,
sometimes the by zombies test doesn't work. A better option is to simply use a passive voice
checker online. There are tons of them. If you're unsure about a sentence, slap it into a detector,
and it'll let you know if it's passive voice. Not only that, it'll break down exactly why
the sentence is passive voice, which trains you to notice this issue on your own in the future.
Number Seven (7): Not sure where to end your chapter? Wse the roller coaster method. When
you first get on a roller coaster, they always begin the same way: climbing up really high. Once
the ride stops, you're low to the ground, the complete opposite of where you began. A chapter
should progress in the same way. It doesn't need to begin on a high note and end on a low note, but
it should end in an opposite place from where it began. If your chapter starts off happy it should
end with anger or sadness: a low to offset the high. If your chapter starts off with tension or
fear it should end with humor or romance: a high to offset the low. Implementing this method will
ensure that your reader’s emotions are constantly changing, which will get them more invested in the
story. Number Eight (8): Not sure where to take your story, plot backwards. A lot of writers know
where their story begins and ends, but the middle gets them all fucked up. An easy way to make the
middle less of a pain in the ass, is to start with the climax, and work your way back. Figure out the
big bang of your book, the moment where everything comes together, and then rewind. Maybe the climax
is a fight to the death between two wizards with the amulet of truth. How do they get into this
fight? Maybe the bad wizard stole the amulet and the good wizard has to get it back? How
did the bad wizard steal it? Maybe he kidnapped the good wizard’s mother and held her hostage.
Step-by-step, question by question, you're bringing yourself closer to the beginning of the
story. You're filling the middle with interesting details. Number Nine (9): Has your outline gotten
overwhelming? Try the puzzle method. Outlining can be difficult. You're essentially building
an entire story, in a very short period of time. An easy way to bypass any frustration is
to implement the puzzle phase in your outlining process. If you've watched my outlining videos,
then you probably already know about the puzzle phase. This is where you write all of your plot
points on post-it notes, and organize them on a poster board or a wall. Like that guy over
there. Move the post-its around, find the perfect place for them within your timeline. You know,
like pieces of a puzzle. This gives you a simple visual of your story, and it also makes it a lot
easier to create a natural chain of events. And of course, it makes the process fun. Because now
you're not working, you're just solving a puzzle. Lastly, Number Ten (10): Not able to get words on
the page? Try writing sprints. Sprinting is a really easy exercise for people who struggle
with word count goals or motivation. The concept is simple: pull out your laptop, set a timer,
and write for as much as you can during the allotted time. Sometimes writers even sprint
in groups, which is a great way to hold yourself accountable. Now there's no guarantee that what
you write will be amazing or perfect, but that's not really the point. The point is to get words on
the page despite your hangups. You're producing content that you can edit later. So that's all
I got for you today. These are my ten hacks for making the writing process a lot more manageable.
I definitely recommend that you try them out and save yourself a headache or ten. A huge thank you
to Skillshare for sponsoring this video and for always being so supportive of my platform. These
guys are awesome, and I am just in love with the service. An annual subscription to Skillshare is
less than ten bucks a month. However, as a special little treat, Skillshare is offering two months
of Skillshare premium for FREE to the first 500 people who click the link below. This offer will
not last forever, only 500 people get to cash in on it, so click the link below. Save yourself some
money, and gain access to a bazillion classes. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I post
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you have to do is ring that bell. You just ring it down below, it's super easy, and then you're
always alerted when I'm here. Isn't that great? The Savior's Champion is available in ebook and
hardback all over the place. You can get it from Amazon, you can get it from barnesandnoble.com.
All the links are listed below, so click ‘em and get yourself a copy. And be sure to follow me on social media
I'm on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and of course you can tweet me @JennaMoreci! Bye!