Marsha Casper Cook

                              WRITING TIPS 
                 FREE WRITES  - FRAN  LEWIS


Free Writes are great to start the juices going. When you start to right a novel, short story or just a blog start writing and keep going. Do not worry about grammar, spelling or anything specific writing skill while doing a free write. As an educator who worked with students who had difficulties writing I wanted to encourage them to just put their thoughts on paper, not tell them how long the piece had to be and praise them for their efforts. This was a positive tool to encourage reluctant writers. When an author or writer feels that too many negative audiences it does get discouraging and often disheartening receive his/her writing. When a piece is completed you need to step away from it and come back to it at later time to see where you want to go with it, begin adding or changing adjectives, deciding on the characters, the plot and or the mood. But, only one element of the plot at a time should be focused on. I found that when teaching students to write short stories and understanding the elements of a novel it was easier to teach plot, mood, character development and the rest one focused area at a time. I would often have them as you can do as writers create your character first or your setting. I found when writing Faces Behind the Stones I had to decide where the story would take place and how I would present the voices of each character even before writing each story. I decided on the 7 stories based on real life events and began writing the first one. Of course, nothing is ever really done. Each piece of writing even after it is published can be improved on. Writing is an on going and exciting process that stimulates the mind and really gets those juices flowing. When writing is received in a negative fashion you need to look long and hard at what the person is saying. If their ideas or criticism is positive and relates to how you can create a stronger plot line, middle section or keeping the reader focused that is great. If the person attacks your message or your thoughts and says they are copied from another author they better be able to prove it. With so many authors ideas will inadvertently overlap with another story. Most of the time you have not even read or our aware of this other author’s writing. So: Keep writing. Get those thoughts down and never ever get discouraged. Your ideas and thoughts are your own and whether everyone likes or dislikes them does not matter. What does matter is that you continue to write.