Guest post by blogger D. Taylor

As I trekked through a wilderness of prose that somehow became a novel, I arrived at some conclusions about writing. Creating a novel is a journey, and just as the characters within that journey grow, so too does the author. If the same person who wrote the first page writes the last, you’re not doing it right.

So crack open my skull and steal my thoughts … pretentious though it may be to claim as much, if you’re a writer, I believe what you’ll find may have some worth.

Good authors write of what they love. Bad authors write what they believe others will love.

Write it, read it, cut it. Then write it again.

No great author was ever born in a creative writing class. The only way to learn to write, is to write.

If in doubt cut.

Give a character ambition, but don’t tell him how to fulfil it. Just sit back and let him take you where he will.

Good isn’t good enough.

Story is nothing, characters are everything.

Sometimes your eraser produces better prose than your pen.

Write like you fight. Your readers are your foes. To stand triumphant on the battlefield you must hit those foes hard, you must hit them fast and you must hit them often.

If you don’t spend your days either writing, or thinking about writing, don’t tell me you want to be an author.

Never let morality get in the way of a good story. If the bad guy kills the good guy, so be it.

“I’m suffering from writers block,” is the succinct, way of saying “I’d rather have a pint and relax in front of the telly, than sit down and do some work.”

A critic cannot create a diamond, only point to its flaws.

See an adjective, cut an adjective.

The line between terrible and terrific is often thinner than the line between good and mediocre.

Write a page. Turn that page into a paragraph. Reduce that paragraph to a line. Telling a good story is not about how much you write, but how much you cut.

To find out more about D.S.Taylor – blog.

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