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Geckat’s List of Amateur Writing Tips



1) Describe. Description is good, and you should always do it as much as you can. We know you see the world you want to show us, but we need to see it as well, every detail. Make good use of adjectives and adverbs. Metaphors, allegories, and references are your friend. When something happens, make sure all relevant questions of who, what, where, how are answered (unless, of course, it’s a mystery). And during particularly influential events – say, the introduction of a new character or setting, bringing to light a new concept or perspective in a dynamic character…anything story-changing should be described as much as possible.



The van came to a halt at the corner of forty-third and eight, invisible aside from the strip of quarter-moonlight glinting off its mirrors. Four men stepped automatically from it, all dressed equally darkly, and equally silent. Not a word passed between them as they assembled in the alley and waited, straight-backed and still. Time ticked on by.



2) Be mysterious. So many people are so proud of the beautiful creation of their protagonist that they give everything away in the beginning. He’s this tall, weighs this much, has this belief about women, has a deep fear of heights, went to Nova Scotia when he was six, likes this sort of clothing, and, of course, is a bloody god at this, this, and this. Not only does this bore your reader to death, but it removes any sort of development you could have done throughout the story, not to mention it makes your character look like a big fat deus ex machina, whether he/she is one or not. So, instead, If you must tell us about your awesome char, just give us the basics. Stuff one would notice right away – maybe he’s really tall, or he doesn’t look like he belongs in wherever he is (clichéd examples, but you get my meaning). Don’t give away everything, and certainly never say anything about a character’s personality outright. Your readers should learn that through the story, not you telling them!



3) Use proper formatting. You don’t know how horrible it is to read a story that’s one giant paragraph. And while you may have outgrown that, there are other nuisances that even very top-heavy writers still throw into their work.

-Indent paragraphs. Please, for the love of God. If you’re posting in some place that doesn’t let you indent, double-space at a paragraph.

-Don’t spam commas. Chances are, if you see a ton of commas in a sentence and you’re pausing after every second word, you’re doing it wrong. Know what a comma splice is, as well as when to use a comma and when to use a semicolon.

-Each speaker gets his own paragraph. I cannot believe how many writers do not know this, but when you get one paragraph with three different speakers, there is no way in Hell I am going to be able to discern who is talking without incurring serious brain damage. One person speaks. Enter. Tab. Second person speaks – speaks again. Enter. Tab. First person speaks again. Enter. Tab.

-Finally, spell-check. Everything has one; Firefox has a built-in one.



4) Don’t be boring. And I don’t mean, “Make sure your plot is full of explosions and hot women.” Contrary to popular belief, it’s the style more than anything that makes prose exciting. Switch things up. Don’t always have sentences the same length; add some compound ones occasionally. Avoid continually using the same word; I like to try to use particularly specialized words only once each in a paragraph, unless I’m using redundancy to establish hyperbole. Perhaps, use different types of words to start sentences (there’s more to life than nouns and pronouns!). Use intriguing words: if someone tells you they don’t like your story because they had to use a dictionary to read it, **Bleep** them. They can go read Twilight if they want a wussy book.



5) Avoid giving away your story. There’s a difference between foreshadowing and basically telling the audience what’s going to happen. Although sometimes it’s a good idea to tell your audience exactly how things will turn out, if the journey there is more thrilling and twisty than the result, you don’t want to say anything that will automatically make your audience realize it’s the butler who done it, so to speak. Foreshadowing should be very, very veiled. Symbolic to the extreme, only noticeable to the reader who finds out what happens, and then goes back to find that there was a hint all along. Foreshadowing embeds itself in the audience’s mind and teases them, but doesn’t give them the answers.



6) Know your action! Everyone loves a good action scene. So many writers think “EPIC BATTAL” when they think of action, but battles tend to wear thin very quickly. That’s why no one likes Dragonball Z. Action can be a scene of passion, a scene of intense contemplation, a scene involving a stand-off between two characters without a clear outcome. Basically every strong turning point in a story can be considered an action scene, and while not all stories have these – some like to slowly progress, letting things develop passively – the ones that do need to have these turning points come out very strongly to the reader. During these scenes, use powerful language: strong adjectives and metaphors can really do the trick. Make sure to switch up your sentence structure rhythmically – I like to describe it as a roller coaster. Through the scene, the little bits building up, you have short sentences – often very short sentences that keep things fast-paced. These are the parts that don’t really matter; they’re just building suspense, like the little ups and downs of our roller coaster. Then, during big turning points – in a fight, a mortal injury, or the first true embrace of love, the breakthrough realization of the antagonist’s intent – comes one or a few long sentences. These pop out at the reader and contain the strongest language yet. Some authors use this to torture their reader (particularly in scenes of torture), dragging things out with terrific descriptions that nearly make the audience cry out for mercy. Or at least a period. This is your big dip.



7) Don’t think of your story as a series of events. A lot of writers just give the readers a blow-by-blow account of what happens, and it just comes out seeming unrealistic and hollow. Have a few branches, even just tiny ones. Although the definition of a short story is one with a single plot, even they have little nuances in them, bits that don’t really relate to the problem at hand but serve as a bit of a distraction. And the reader doesn’t know whether or not they’re relevant. Good writers do this frequently to change things up a little – to switch gears, so to speak. To keep the audience guessing and keep things fresh. If you don’t do this, your story will be boring.



8) Clichés. I don’t want to say, “Never use clichés, they are of the Devil,” because that’s not true. Sometimes clichés can be useful, usually when you want to give the audience a feeling while doing very little work. However, clichés are just that: they’re so overused that they really don’t mean anything anymore. George Orwell, writer of such famous books as Animal Farm and 1984, stated in his own list of do’s and don’t’s, “If you’ve heard it before, don’t use it in your writing.” And I think, minus the exception I listed above and those made at the discretion of the individual, that this is a good, succinct rule.



9) Mood. Mood is incredibly important. In the first tip, I said to describe a lot. This is building on that: not only should you describe a lot, but you should do it properly. “Frolic” is not a bad word. It’s certainly better than “play”. However, it’s a word you’d prefer to use only in certain conditions…say, a play swordfight between two children as opposed to a blood-driven battle between two generals. Similarly, what would be a better word to use when describing blood flowing out of a car wreck and sinking into a dirt trail: mingle or fuse? It’s not always discernable, but each word has a sort of flavor in the mouth, and in the ear and mind as well by relation, some stronger than others. This is a good thing to consider when trying to evoke a certain mood in your audience.



10) Be satisfied. If you don’t adore what you’ve written, neither will others. Thus, only publish when you are certain you’ve done your best possible work on this piece, and you can’t work on it any more. If you don’t, when you get criticism, you’ll just get stuff that you already know you should have done but didn’t do because you wanted to get something out there. Read and reread and rereread your work so you know it’s as perfect as is possible for you. On a related note, don’t talk about what you think is right or wrong in your foreword. Don’t go “well this isn’t my best but its ok I guess tell me what u think” – with or without n00bsp33k, this is a huge turn-off for your audience.

This world has changed beyond recognition over the course of six billion years. Continents have split, oceans have formed, life has spawned, mountains erected, reefs constructed. But the most wrenching alteration in the history of the planet is civilization. We have set out to control everything we touch, from the direction of rivers to the construction of islands to evolution itself, and what is truly astonishing is that we have succeeded at every turn. Civilization has become a force - not of nature, but against nature, beyond nature. Far surpassed our ancestors, who fought on an even level with wild animals and died in their jaws just as often as they did in the grip of wretched climate, in just a few million years and now that we have stripped down creatures that would once have flayed us with their claws to house pets and made even the harshest parts of the globe easily inhabited by our species we have turned against another foe: ourselves.

This is natural. We've conquered nature but we still have our own, and our lot is competition. We need something to strive for, to take over, to beat into submission so that we can replace its flag with our own. For this, we need no reason, just the barest incentive.

What a stupid way to go, thought a politician. He was seated, watching the destruction of the world unfold before his eyes, himself bathed in the glow of a screen: "...ambassadors and diplomats are frantically attempting to avert the situation but a solution has yet to be reached. According to meteorologists based on satellite information, global temperatures are increasing by a factor of nearly 1.5 percent weekly on average. Specialists in the field have attributed this drastic change in global climate to the steady release of carbon dioxide gas from the polar ice caps triggered initially by human activity." These last two words were given the anchorwoman emphasis. Hu-man ac-tiv-ity. "They say that a solution at this point is not within reach, given our current technology, and that we should instead focus on adapting to the change..."

There was a faint buzzing in the corner of the room. The politician got to his feet slowly, as if they were magnetically attracted to the ground, and stepped slowly towards the table where the device whirred in manic agitation. He briefly read the name flashing on its screen and flicked a switch next to it. "Good day," he said.

A hoarse voice boomed from the device in response, "It's a worse day than the last one, my good sir. Why is your secretary not answering your phone for you?"

"She is at home," said the politician. "Watching the broadcast like the rest of the Third State. With her family."

"I see no need for that. Did you dismiss her?"

"She has her job still, if that's what you're asking me."

"Yes. Good."

"I'm sure she will be delighted to hear that she got an official call from the prime minister of the First State concerning her persevering health."

"That is not all."

The politician sighed, "I didn't think so."

"I have something else to ask you."

The anchorwoman had not stopped speaking for this conversation, "...representatives in the media for the Second State have expressed their desire to acquire a cease-fire with the First State. Reporters were unable to question anyone further but we were told anonymously that the cease-fire was proposed to accommodate time for negotiation between the Third and First..."

The prime minister made a sound of impatience, "I imagine you are watching the broadcast yourself."

"Yes," said the politician, keeping his voice even.

"Then you know what I am about to ask. Before now the Second State has been the chief contributor to the crisis at hand. The atmosphere is thick with their mess. You've seen the statistics."

"I have."

"Then you agree that they are responsible for all of our expenses in dealing with this?"

"Yes. We have surveyed the data provided for us and discussed the matter. We have also taken several referendums."

"I'm happy that you have reached a conclusion."

"The conclusion," the politician took a momentary pause, steeling himself, "is that whoever is at fault for the loss of money and life, no more expenses should be incurred. In any way."

"...have it on good authority, although no names have been given, that the two prime ministers will plan an engagement tonight..."

"You're early," the politician remarked solemnly.

"What do you mean, prime minister?"

"It isn't the evening yet."

"Your decision."

"Our decision," growled the politician, "the decision of the Third State, is that there will be no war between us and the Second State."

"The atmosphere is thick with smog!" the politician could hear the barely masked impatience in the prime minister's voice. "We have demanded reparations that they refuse to pay - us, who actually strove to make this a cleaner world!"

"There is nothing clean about warfare."

"Only swift, my good prime minister. There is no way for you to avoid war on both fronts. You cannot remain neutral. How do I know that no deal between you and the prime minister of the Second State has been undertaken?"

"I promise you, none have."

"Three of our cities have already been struck."

"We can send humanitarian aid."

"It's beyond that now." The voice of the prime minister of the First State seemed to boom around the room, now quiet as the broadcast station had gone off the air. "We cannot remain on good terms if there is a chance that you will associate yourself with the Second State. This is a final warning."

There was no warning from the broadcast station, the politician thought. No command for the nation to go underground, no checklist of precautions to take. The anchorwoman simply bid the world good evening with the face of a liar and the screen went black. As if this was a cue, the final, even-toned line, the politician reset the switch on the device, and it went quiet.

He stepped outside and looked towards the horizon. A shuddering roar whistled overhead and something like a black bolt from the northwest, a shard of negative lightning accompanied by thunder that deafened: it sucked the noise from the universe in an instant and then blasted it out in a deep bass that shook the ground beneath the politician's feet. And then he saw the cloud rising slowly skyward like some twisted fantasy of vaporized buildings and bodies and flecks of glass. The politician's mind was blank: two years of speaking, of stalling, negotiating, and above all holding to democracy had led to this, although he wondered faintly if the people of that distant metropolis had realized that their faith in their own civilized methods had led to their burning deaths as the wave of energy shredded their bodies.

The politician sat now on the bare earth, letting the load off his trembling legs. Another murderous howl from above, closer this time, forced him to look west. He saw the towers peeking over the horizon, glittering in the fading sunlight hidden behind perpetually golden overcast skies. An instant before the politician realized his proximity to ground zero and shielded his vision the missile struck, and he saw for a split second high above the dissolving infrastructure a bulge. The atmosphere itself was lifting, up and away from the ground, ignited with red blaring against the sulphurous clouds. It formed something like a rapidly expanding tumour on the sky, pressing out and out until it escaped even the gravity and dissolved into space. When the politician allowed himself to look again, the city below had vanished, and clouds were now slowly rolling in to mask the part of the sky that had been ripped from the pull of the world by the force of the bomb.

The world would be cleaned by warfare, thought the politician as the wind of the blast ripped across his face. The civilization that had ruined nature would ruin it still, and ruin itself, until there was nothing left to lay waste to. This, he considered with some satisfaction as a third weapon whistled overhead.


Billions years later, a tiny, crude craft would land roughly on the planet's surface. It would probe the landscape, mapping out every piece of land visible to radar. It would take samples of the iron oxide that blanketed the world: a product of decomposed waste elements and the tiny remainder of atmosphere. And, at the beckon of a radio signal, it would photograph the imprint of a single bacterium, long dead, embedded in the alien rock.

Back home people would sit in laboratories and mull over the results of their findings and hypothesize. Once there was water here, they would say, but it all froze or was lost with the atmosphere, which dissipated over time naturally. It carved out these canals - see? - and this monstrous valley. Before it had tectonics, and shorter days perhaps, all lost to the age of the world. But this tiny organism - such a massive breakthrough! It shows that there may have once been life here. But we have studied this new planet inside and out, seen its rough nakedness with our own eyes: By the state of it now we can conclude that no intelligent species lived here.