When writing fiction, you want to be original; that is, your plot, characters, setting and ideas should be fresh or novel (no pun intended).

After all, to some degree, you decided to start writing because you had something to tell the world. This need not be some deep philosophical idea but could also be how you say it, such as being able spin the proverbial good yarn. If you started writing to simply retell others’ ideas and storylines, you’re only being imitative and are not much different than a painter who follows the master’s style. You may be skilled at replicating the master’s style, but you’ll always be in the master’s shadow.

Of course, as the old saying goes, “There’s nothing new under the sun,” so at least to some degree, your story cannot be entirely original. Many genres, for example, have conventions and structures that readers expect.

You also can “borrow” concepts from other writers – sometimes. Ideas or themes always may be used. However, discussing an idea or theme doesn’t allow you to use another writer’s wording; once you do that, you’re guilty of plagiarism.

Further, sometimes terms another writer uses can be adopted while at other times they can’t. The term can be borrowed if it’s in common usage, like “ray gun” and “space suit”; in fact, several writers have used the same term, and most people who aren’t science fiction readers know what they mean. But you’re being unoriginal and possibly violating copyright when you use ideas specific to an author or series; for example, “phaser” says “Star Trek” and “ego-likeness” says Frank Herbert’s “Dune.”

You also can still retell old stories, such as myths, legends and fairy tales. When doing so, however, give it your own sensibility. For example, what makes Robin Hood an interesting character in modern terms? Build on the tale, adding twists to it and making it relevant to modern readers. In addition, when retelling old stories, give it your own voice. For example, you wouldn’t tell “King Arthur” using the same diction as Geoffrey of Monmouth.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

“Write first, drink later. To write you must be warm, fed, loved and sober.” – Patrick McGrath

“The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” – Pico Iyer

“Read great paragraphs until their rhythms get stuck in your head.” – Lily Rothman

“Start writing, no matter what. The water doesn’t flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour

“The secret: Do good work and share it with people.” – Austin Kleon

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

There are more than 2 billion websites on the planet. To get readers to stay on yours and to return, you need to offer what nobody else does – or at least in a way that no one else does. That’s a challenge certainly, but it can be done. Simply follow some basic principles of website text.

Your website text should be:
• Unique – Rather than be a copycat of a competitor’s site, you need to present your business by using original wording and descriptions. You may sell the exact same products and even offer the exact same services, but your website is an opportunity to distinguish your business from the rest.
• Useful – Readers come to your site to obtain information. You must then provide the information that the majority of them want so that they’ll stick around, increasing the chances that they’ll then purchase your products or services. Rather than offer vague wording (such as a lot of superlatives), tell them exactly what you offer and why it’s better than the rest. Think about this wording from your readers’ point of view. What do they want to know? Figure that out then provide it.
• Updated – If your website was created even a few months ago, you may need to update it, whether it is because there are new employees whose pictures need to be posted or because prices have changed. Providing outdated information to people makes your business look bad, causing potential customers to think you’re scamming them or less than competent.
• Fresh – Among the worst mistakes businesses make is creating a static website. To keep potential customers coming back to your site and to convince them that you can provide the best services or product, you’ll want to regularly provide new information that demonstrates your expertise and knowledge of the field. A blog with posts two or three times a week is a great way to do this.

In addition, sites that are purely meta-lists, meaning they only provide links to other sites, aren’t a great idea. Despite being easy to build, they offer no original, unique content. Of course, meta-lists can be useful as a component of your website; for example, if your site reviews hiking gear, perhaps you’d provide a list, with links, to businesses that sell backpacks, trekking poles and boots as one of your pages. But if your site primarily is a series of links to other sites, once the reader discovers a great webpage via your meta-list, they may decide not to go back to yours.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

• Should you ever co-write your book? 
Sometimes you come up with a great story idea with another person. Or your discussions and critiques of one another’s works are inspiring. So you decide to co-write a book. Is it a good idea?

• Should you use a pen name for your book? 

• How to come up with a great pen name

• How to come up with an awesome story title 

• Should you turn your life story into a novel?

• How long should my young adult novel be?

• Fanfic not so bad if used for growing as a writer 

When should you start a new chapter in your novel? Does a new scene simply require a line break or does it demand a whole new page?

There’s no hard and fast rule for when to end or start a new chapter. Like word choice or sentence length, it’s a matter of feel, of craftsmanship.

Still, there ought to be a good reason for beginning and ending a chapter. Given this, being aware of some of the reasons why you might end/start a chapter is helpful.

Among the more common reasons for beginning a new chapter are to:
• Show significant new action – While scenes might occur only a short length of time apart from one another or even occur concurrent with one another, a chapter signifies a major new action or movement in the story. For example, one chapter might have the heroes planning an assault on a warehouse to free someone who has been kidnapped; the next chapter has our heroes actually assaulting the warehouse.
• Enhance the dramatic effect – A cliffhanger is a good example of this. A chapter could end with a character in a situation that he likely can’t get out of it (such as being corned by an assassin), and the next chapter then could show how he overcomes the crisis (such as asking as a condemned man to enjoy a last cigarette, which actually delivers a dart with an instant knockout potion in it).
• Reveal important information – When our main character learns something of such great significance that he must radically change his view or plan to resolve a problem, a chapter likely can end. For example, a wife about to sit down with her husband to talk about their lack of communication might learn he is cheating on her.
• Present new point of view – When the perspective character in the novel shifts, then a new chapter should begin. If you are telling the story from the point of view of a commander on a spaceship and then the commanding officer on the planet below, when switching between action occurring on the ship and the planet you may want to start a new chapter.

Perhaps because television shows have acts that are equal in length – it’s always the same number of minutes between commercials – new novelists these days feel they also must have chapters of the same length. While that might work for some stories, for others it is an artificiality that actually is detrimental to the story by disrupting its flow.

In addition, novels need not be divided into chapters at all. Though uncommon, sometimes shorter novels (often of less than 150 pages) can simply use line breaks between scenes rather than resort to chapters that are only three or four pages long. In longer novels, the book may simply be divided into parts (Part I, Part II, Part III, etc.) with each of those sections treated as a long short story.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

Click the title for a link to the full article:

• Write your story’s penultimate scene  
In every story, there comes a turning point or an ultimate moment in which the situation has become so intolerable that the main character must take a decisive step and emerge victorious. This scene is known as the climax.

• Three alternatives for your story’s climax  

• Avoid deus ex machina ending in your story

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my guidebooks for plotting your story:

Among the biggest mistakes that writers stuck in a rut make is thinking that their writing sessions are going nowhere. Perhaps the scene you wrote doesn’t seem to advance the story, perhaps the explanation doesn’t really fit into your nonfiction book.

Rather than view the writing session from a negative perspective – which often leads to a sour attitude when approaching your next session – instead look at it as a positive learning experience.

When your writing session is over, reflect on it. What can you learn from it? Try to identify a specific reason the writing is not up to your standards. Even if the answer is “I’m not sure how to write crisp dialogue,” that’s still something.

Now follow-up by reading about how to write tighter dialogue and see if you can revise the conversation you’ve written to make it better. Now that initial session was productive – it was simply the first draft.

Of course, if your vehicle is caught in mud or snow, not every effort to spin it out will succeed. Rather than be frustrated, though, examine why your effort to get out didn’t work and then trying a new solution – like tossing sand in the rut – will prove much more fruitful. And just as certainly as you must get your vehicle driving down the road again, so you must keep writing!

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

One rookie mistake made by many self-publishing authors is that they start formatting their manuscript before it is completed. 

Formatting when writing to a small degree makes some sense. Many authors want to get a feel for what their book will look like in print. Or perhaps to get a “head start” while waiting for a proofreading to be completed, they start formatting.

Almost invariably, though, this actually will create more work.

Before formatting, you want to be absolutely done writing, fact-checking, editing and even proofreading the book. If you format in MS Word and then make changes to the text, you’ll likely run into one or more of the following problems:
• Page numbers change – Book design traditionally places the first page of a chapter on the right-hand (odd-numbered) page. When text is added or deleted, this can alter the locations of headers and chapters, forcing you to add empty lines to the page or even entirely new blank pages.
• Table of contents and index change – Usually regenerating the table of contents is easy enough…but editing after page numbers have been set requires you to redo this step. With indexes, you may recheck every entry.
• Hyphenated words shift – To get wording to space properly across a line in MS Word, sometimes hyphens are manually added. Delete or add a single word, however, and usually those hyphens no longer appear at the end of a line but its middle.
• Page breaks shift – Especially with MS Word, you might place artificial breaks in the text to ensure it is justified on the page. Changing a word can result in an empty line of text or push text to the next page.
• Images and text boxes get cut off – Adding or deleting text also means that images and any text boxes (such as for drop caps or breakout boxes) will shift on the page. They may no longer appear next to captions or only parts of them may appear on the page.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t make changes to a formatted manuscript. If you notice a typo, by all means fix it. Usually a lone misspelling won’t cause major problems, as its impact on the formatted text is localized (such as throwing off hyphens within that paragraph). But the fewer typos you have to correct, the less likely corrections will mess up the formatting.

Of course, some minor formatting can begin the moment you start writing. Selecting the font, the font size, and the line spacing, as well as boldfacing the chapter titles and headers (presuming you want them boldface) makes perfect sense. But any formatting that might be impacted whenever you revise the text ought to wait.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks: