If you’re ready to write that fiction book that you’ve been thinking about for quite some time, we’re here to help!

As an author, it’s up to you to paint a vivid picture through your words in the minds of your readers. Each sentence is a beautiful brush stroke that brings to life the tale that you’re trying to tell.

When it comes to fiction writing, your creativity and imagination are in overdrive and in today’s blog, we want to offer you three pieces of advice to help steer your writing ship in the right direction.

Find your audience

Before you start writing, it’s important to identify your target audience. It’s safe to say that your writing isn’t going to appeal to everyone. By putting this mindset to the side, you’ll be able to focus your efforts on writing something that will appeal to the audience that’s interested in this style of writing. Once you’ve determined your audience (gender, age, group, etc.) work your story in a way that will interest this group of people.

Bring your characters to life

When you’re creating your characters, you want to give them traits that make them human. Perhaps it’s a nervous twitch, or a fingernail biting habit or even the way that he/she walks. The point of the matter is to make your characters seem real to the reader. Just like you, characters change over time. Their personalities are malleable, their reactions are sincere and their ability to think through situations should be apparent to help connect your readers to the character. Characters aren’t meant to be static so it’s your job as the author to show not tell your readers how this person is changing.

Make your story – real

Speaking of the idea of showing and not telling, when it comes to writing, you want your reader to take a step out of their reality and into the pages of your book. One way to do so is by satiating their appetite for details that make the story seem real. You’re doing your readers a disservice by trying to wrap up a scene too quickly. If you think about events in real life, they likely don’t end in an instant. Let the substance of your story build and work on planting and nurturing the seeds of your plot’s rising action. To this point, when describing a scene, try to go into as much detail as you can without boring your audience.

Rather than saying, “It was a dark and stormy night…”

Try something like, “As I pushed aside the heavy drapes on the window, my eye caught the rain drops as they cascaded over the top of the flickering street light bringing the night in and out of focus…”

Your goal is to stir emotions within your readers so that they feel that they are experiencing your story firsthand.

We hope that you’ll take these three pieces of writing advice and start your journey into making your dreams a reality.

Copyright Dorrance Publishing, 2016