Writing What People Love Without Sounding Like Everyone Else

People expect certain things when they pick up a book. 

Obviously, they expect to enjoy it. They expect to care about the main character. They expect to laugh, to get angry, to be satisfied at the end (well, most of the time). As the all-powerful author, you should do your very best to give people what they expect. You want your readers to be happy they read your book. 

There are some classic things that readers love in a novel. They're easy to stick in your book, but it's not so easy to cut and paste in a well-rounded character, or a full character arc in one paragraph. 

Here's a few ways to write people love without sounding like everyone else. 

Combine Characters

The wise teacher. 

The best friend. 

The antagonist. 

I bet you can think of countless examples of those three characters in your favorite novels. Chiron from Percy Jackson, Ron in Harry Potter, and Darth Vader are a few I pulled off the top of my head. You might not have all of these type characters in your novel, but you should have at least one.  The thing about these character archetypes, while we love all the Rons and John Watsons, is that sometimes they get a little old. The slightly doubtful best friend that always shows up when needed and sticks by the hero, is a character that shows up over and over again. 

As is the wise old sage. And of course, every story has an antagonist. 

But we need these characters! Our stories would not be the same without them. 

So what do we do to make these desperately needed characters a little less faded, and a little more extraordinary? 

Combine them. 

The best friend could also be the antagonist (this could be an interesting twist). 
The love interest could be the wise teacher. 

Or have the teacher turn into the villain (this happens a lot in the Spiderman movies, I've noticed). *

That snarky, pessimistic character that loves to make the hero feel bad about himself? What if she was the best friend? 

I'm sure you can come up with a few more interesting combinations. 

Combining characters can improve your story in several ways. It gets rid of unneeded characters, and makes the characters you do need better. They're more realistic, they have more motivation, and they're more lovable. 

Go Easy on the Love Story

Everyone loves a good love story. Even if there's not a love interest in the book you're reading right now, I bet there's someone you ship the main character with. I always wanted Trixie Belden and Jim to get together, but that never really happened. 

And #Dramione. No thanks to J.K. 

Sometimes love interests can go a little overboard, though. And, I don't know about you, but once my ship becomes canon, I get a little bit bored. 

So my advice with love stories is this: 

Unless you are purely writing a romance novel, keep your love interest on the back burner. This works even better in a series. Let it simmer, let people get invested in the relationship before the two characters even know they like each other. Then, boom! At the end of the book (or series) bring the two characters together. 

In the middle, you can do a little teasing. A little dancing around the attraction, but be sure to never address it directly. You lose momentum and interest. And don't do too much teasing, either. Then you can be in danger of changing subplot to main plot. 

Just be careful, and be smart. Stoke the fire, but don't let it burst into flame. 

(Why do people use so many cliches when talking about love? I can't even write a paragraph about it without using 200,000 really stupid ones.)

Don't worry too much about humor. 

Getting the humor right in a story has always been really tough for me. I'm extremely sarcastic in real life, so I can easily make my characters be sarcastic, but not everyone thinks sarcasm is as humorous as I do. And also, in a book, a little bit of sarcasm goes a long way. 

But truly hilarious scenes and characters are hard to craft. Countless times, I've spent so much time trying to make a scene as funny as possible, but when I read back over it, it seems very contrived and flat and not funny at all. 

So unless you're trying to write an actual humor book, my advice to you is this. Don't worry too much about it. Most likely you'll write a few lines that will make people smile, but if you don't, that's okay. The Hunger Games didn't have any laugh out loud scenes, but there were a few lines that I thought were pretty funny. Obviously that book did pretty well. 

So don't spend a lot of time trying to infuse humor into your book. Most likely your sense of humor will come out in your writing anyway, and even if you did pour a lot of time making a scene absolutely hilarious, what's rolling-on-the-floor-laughing funny to you, may not be funny at all to someone else. 

Humor is very selective, so your kind of humor is not going to be funny to everybody.
Overall, just don't worry about it too much. If you have a couple of funny lines, you should be fine.


So there's three things you can do right now to help with editing, or maybe they will give you some help with a new project.
How do you change your writing to make classic characters and plots different? Did you think of any different character combinations? Let me know in the comments! 

*Having a backstory for your villain helps them seem more real, and might also get some of your readers rooting for the villain. When Joss Whedon wrote the script for Thor, I'm sure he didn't anticipate his villain, Loki, having such a large group of fans. This might have something to do with Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of the character, but a lot of it is the struggle we see Loki has. He's the outsider. He doesn't feel appreciated, or loved. It's easy to see how someone who is very insecure and uncomfortable could turn to the wrong person for acceptance. So don't be afraid to make your villain slightly pitiable. Just make sure to keep them a little despicable, or they might turn into the protagonist. 

How to Stay EXCITED About Your Novel

When the first flicker of an idea jumps into your life, it's really easy to get excited about potential characters and subplots and settings.

30,000 words in, you're probably not still as pumped up. I am the queen of losing momentum and giving up on a project. I'm not as bad as I used to be, but it is still really easy to throw a project aside and move on to a newer, shinier one.

The next time you're not feeling the love for your WIP, here are some tips to get back that initial excitement.

Date your book. 

Have you ever heard the classic piece of marriage advice, "date your spouse"? The general idea is that, while dating, you're out doing fun things together, showing each other your best side, and really putting a lot of effort into the relationship. Then, after you marry the person, you get sucked into the doldrums of everyday life and just plod along. Going back to dating your spouse is a sure way to put the magic back into the relationship. 

This can translate pretty easily to author and novel. 

Go back and think about the first idea you had for your novel. What excited you about it? What made you think, 'this could be the one'?  Make a list of your main character's best attributes. Re-read your favorite scene. Basically, think about all the things you like about your book. Forget about the plotholes and the flat characters. Focus on everything you know you've got right. 

Make an inspiration board. 

This could be a physical bulletin board, or a virtual board on Pinterest.  I personally prefer the accessibility and convenience of just pinning things onto a board online. Whenever I get an idea for a new story, I create a board on Pinterest.  A lot of times, I even make it private if I'm not sure I'll ever follow through with the idea.
Pinterest is a great source for ideas about setting, and I've even gotten a couple of scene ideas from pictures on Pinterest. It can be easy to get sucked into Pinterest and keep scrolling for hours, so I try to use it as a reward for writing a certain amount of words. 

An actual cork board, or a folder with pictures in it works as well. You just have to put a little more effort into finding the pictures and putting them together.
Add pictures of people that look like your characters, places that look just like the world they live in, and whatever else you like. If your character is a chef, pin pictures of food she might cook.
In my current project, the main characters work in a bookstore. My Pinterest board for that novel is filled with pictures of cool looking bookstores.
You get the idea. 

Music. 

Music while writing is one of those things that not all people can do. For me it varies. Sometimes, it can be very inspirational, and other times, it's just a distraction. Music with a vocalist tends to be more distracting, while instrumental music usually never distracts me. 

If you're one of those people that can't write with music playing, listen to music just before you start writing. 

Music does a really great job of getting me in the mood for the scene I'm about to write. If I'm writing a sad scene, I listen to sad music. A happy scene, I play a happy song.  I really like movie soundtracks for scary or serious scenes. Some of my favorites are the Chronicles of Narnia movie soundtracks, anything by Hans Zimmer, and the Titanic soundtrack. 

If you've lost some of the excitement for your novel, I hope this helps you get back the magic! Do you have anything else you do when you're getting disenchanted? Any special music you listen to, or pictures you look at? 

Writing is (Like) a Sport

Has anyone ever asked you how long it took you to write a novel? Personally, whenever I get asked this question, I feel sheepish saying "About a year."

Because, if you are a total stranger to the writing game, that can sound like a really long time. 

But it's actually not. The first twinkle of an idea, then the plotting (or if you're a pantser, plunging right in), the first draft, then the revising and re-revising and revising some more. And sometimes trashing the whole thing and starting over, can take a long time. Sometimes even more than a year. 

To an outsider, this sounds ridiculous. Because, if you're any good at writing, you should be able to just sit down and tap out a book, right? You're either a writer or you're not, right? 

Wrong. So wrong, I can't even begin to tell you how wrong it is. 

So the next time you're telling someone about your writing and they seem a little skeptical, throw this bomb at them. 

Writing is basically a sport. 

I won't go so far as to say that writing is a sport, but I will say that writing is like a sport. And here are some of the reasons why. 

When you first start, you have no idea what you're doing. 

I'm going to use basketball for my illustration here.  I am not an expert on any sport, but basketball is the one I'm most familiar with. 

Usually children are young when they first start playing basketball. They have no idea what they're doing. They drop the ball when they're trying to dribble, they walk constantly, and they miss the basket by several feet. 

It's the same with writing. Your first attempt at writing any sort of novel, you're leaving huge plotholes, you've got underdeveloped characters, and a weak story structure. 

There's no reason to expect anything different. Just like a six-year-old can't sink a hoop their first time out on the court, no one writes a perfect novel their first time. It just doesn't happen. 

You have to practice really really really hard before you get good at it. 

No one got to the Olympics because they were born with this amazing talent. Some sports come easier to some people than others, but every athlete who becomes famous always talks about how much time they spent practicing. They had to get up early, and practice in all sorts of weather. Sick, emotional, even when they wanted to quit, they had to keep practicing. 

Writing is like that, too. You have to write if you ever expect to get any better at it. You can't just write one novel and call it a masterpiece. I can promise you, it's probably not. Yes, there are people who got their first novel published, but you're probably not going to be one of them (sorry!). 

There are always exceptions to the rule, but there are very few. 

The best way to get better at writing is to write. 

Just like in sports, where the motto is "Practice, Practice, Practice", your motto should be "Write, Write, Write." 

At some point, you will hate it and want to quit. 

Most famous athletes have gone into retirement at some point. Or at least taken a break from their sport. Most of the time though, they come back. They just can't stay away. 

Sometimes you can't keep writing. Whether it's because you have a book that you just can't get perfect, or you've just run out of things you want to write about, every once in a while you have to take a break. 

But if you really, truly love writing, you'll come back. 

So, you are an athlete. Writing is like a sport, and you need to keep practicing. Don't be afraid to step out of the game for a minute, but, don't be too scared to step back in. 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! 

Have you ever felt like people didn't think your writing was important? Do you have something you say that makes people realize how tough writing is?