Top 10 Writing Tips

Once upon a time, you would plonk yourself down at an ageing, wooden desk, hot cup of steaming coffee to the side while you tapped furiously on an old brother typewriter. Fast forward a few years and writers and creatives alike are now voicing their thoughts through iPads, fancy desktop computers, dictation, and even through the medium of podcast. There have been so many changes in the format and style of how writing is supplied to the world that it's almost impossible to keep up.

Despite the ever-changing way in which we write, market or sell our stories, we all need to follow a simple structure to help us achieve the best quality result. Here are 10 top tips to keep you on track:

                                            Young Book Writer Writing in Library

Note. Sourced depositphotos.com Elnur_ (2021)

1. Make sure your voice is unique and entirely your own - as in - don't be afraid to be original in your thinking. If you feel the urge to compete with and/or copy another artist, then where is the true joy and inspiration that you're hoping to impart?
2. Organise your thought process. Good stories have well thought out structure. Evolve your characters, build conflict, resolve conflict, and finally find a way to bring the story to conclusion or add a little hook for evolving sagas.
3. Create consistent characters. Make notes about each of your characters to ensure you have consistency regarding their behaviour, speech style, and aesthetic.
4. Make sure you've done your research on the topic you intend to write, blog or podcast about.
5. Keep your writing as simple as possible. Avoid convoluted sentences and too much fluff in your descriptions. Instead of saying 'she walked as fast as her legs could carry her', you could say, 'she walked hurriedly'.
6. Edit. Edit Edit. And once you've done that, proofread some more.
7. Read other novels to gain insight on styles, structure, characters, and creative thinking.
8. Be open to receiving constructive criticism.
9. Write consistently and as often as possible.
10. And most importantly ... write about the things that you would like to read!

Hopefully that helped, but feel free to reach out if you want any more ideas to help keep you going or set the pace.

Kristy 😀

Book Review: Alone with you in the Ether

Synopsis: Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings.

For Regan, people are predictable and tedious, including and perhaps especially herself. She copes with the dreariness of existence by living impulsively, imagining a new, alternate timeline being created in the wake of every rash decision.

To Aldo, the world feels disturbingly chaotic. He gets through his days by erecting a wall of routine: a backbeat of rules and formulas that keep him going. Without them, the entire framework of his existence would collapse.

For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability—until the two meet. Could six conversations with a stranger be the variable that shakes up the entire simulation?

My two cents worth:

Aldo and Regan, the main characters of this rather simple, yet perplexing story of boy meets girl are the most confusing and mentally challenging individuals I've yet to encounter within a story. The author defines the book as a 'love story', but do not fool yourself into thinking there will be romance or the usual telling of lust and evolving relationship normality. This is a strange, and for lack of a better word, complex enmeshing of polar opposite characters that are magnetised to the other's eccentricities. 

The novel explores the evolution of thought as two individuals with their own unique mental struggles somehow define a new language in order to see the world through the same magnified glass. Unpredictable behaviours in both Aldo and Regan ignite curiosity, passion, and shared intellectual intelligence which within themselves unlocks some stability in their otherwise tumultuous thoughts and past patterns of behaviour.

I found this story intriguing and all together just plain different from anything I've ever read before. Even the story itself moved from being within a conversation between characters, to almost hovering above the ghost of history's past and re-living that particular moment. Did I enjoy this story? No, I don't think I actually did. The writing was good, the plot average at best, but the characters and their idiosyncrasies really set the novel apart from other stories within the 'love' genre.

I was intrigued, which I suppose is as much a positive as is not actually enjoying the story overall. I will say this is a very clever author with a very unique perspective, and if nothing else, this book should be well and truly celebrated for breaking the mold of conformity and arousing curiosity within its reader.

3 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐

Kristy :)

What to do when Designing Book Covers

Designing a successful book cover is an extricate process as writing the novel in the first place. Just like when defining your characters, plot, battles, conversations, or inserting witty repertoire, the appropriate design for your cover needs to be well considered.

So, here are some points that may help when looking to design your own book cover:

The name of the book is 
largest and obvious 
followed by the
author's name in its
own unique position.

The image is singular 
and brazen. The title again
takes prime position with
all fonts interrelated and colour
matched to the cover image.

1. Make sure your cover image matches your genre - The worst thing you can do is try to trick the reader with an inauthentic image that represents something too far removed from the story behind your novel. For instance, you wouldn't place a picture of a fantasy realm with mythical creatures if you had written a hard-hitting detective novel. The reader will very quickly feel misled and may leave a bad review, because let's face it, we shop with our eyes first!
2. Use the correct font and colours - Ensure that your title hits home, ie; it is the clear and definitive within your cover and works coherently with your cover image. Choose colours that are appropriate to the image selected and also make sure they are not too garish or multiple in choice. This also applies to font. Too many variations in font can be confusing and ugly.
3. Never use a copywrite image - This is pretty self-explanatory, avoid any trademarked or copywritten material that could leave you liable.
4. Ensure good structure and layout - The title should take up pride of place within the cover, either in the middle or appropriately placed to create the right sense of drama and that the image does not overwhelm the cover. The author's name should be smaller than the title and placed either directly with the title or in its own space near the bottom (not visually crowded by images or tag lines).
5. Too much text or visual elements - Again, self-explanatory, but if your cover is filled with word after word which is then swamped with a busy visual background, the reader's eye is drawn everywhere and nowhere all at once.
6. Tag lines - If you are going to have a tag line, make sure it is short, sharp, and snappy and doesn't interfere visually with either the title or author's name.
7. Writing a series - If your books are a part of a series, it's okay to use different visual images, but there should be consistency between each novel ie; same font used for titles and author names, similar colours, similar imagery styles etc. Try to show coherency between each jump in novel so that the reader can piece that the series belongs together.

Well, that should get you started, and please feel free to drop a comment if you think there are some other valuable nuggets of information on book design that may help other authors on their writing journey. Also, if you would like your cover assessed, also just drop a visual in the comments and I'll provide some honest feedback.

Kristy😀

Book Review: Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker

Synopsis: Darby, Mary Beth, and Rhea are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood—their careers, their sex lives, their bodies. Their children, though, disrupt their plans when an unsettling medical condition begins to go around the Little Academy preschool: the kids are craving blood.

Then a young teacher is found dead, and the only potential witnesses are ten adorable four-year-olds.

Soon it becomes clear that the children are not just witnesses, but also suspects . . . and so are their mothers.

As the police begin to look more closely, the children’s ability to bleed their parents dry becomes deadly serious. Part murder mystery, part motherhood manifesto, Cutting Teeth explores the standards society holds mothers to—along with the ones to which we hold ourselves—and the things no one tells you about becoming a parent.

My two cents worth ...

I can honestly say that Chandler Baker weaves quite an in depth, and pleasantly surprising account of motherhood - the joys, the fears, and the things we never truly admit to anyone else - from the perspective of three very different women. A mother myself, I found a lot of the inner dialogue and conversational pieces relatable, and at some times, laughable for the honesty imbued. I actually think this is where the strength of this book truly lies. The story line, although quirky and somewhat slightly different if you are expecting some sort of supernatural read does ultimately prove to be short of thrills. Without revealing too much of the story, the characters unfold with a level of predictability that offers very little for the reader to figure out. About halfway through this book I knew "who'd done it", but still found myself wanting to understand how the children craving blood tied in with everything unfolding.

The author, although very clever with their formation of characters and creating a true believability, unfortunately fails to bring a sense of relevance to the overarching story. Where I'd hoped for the supernatural element of blood craving to be further developed, it merely operated as a side car to the real vehicle of this novel - the who done it.

With a very real skill in crafting relatable characters and relationships, this author tipped the scales from a mediocre read to something closer to intriguing. If you are searching for something highly thrilling and dripping in darkness, then this novel is not quite the page turner. That being said, the candid and astonishingly inciteful deep dive into the working minds of motherhood is worth the read alone.

3 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐

Kristy 😄

What are 15 things no one knows about you?

Sometimes it’s nice to do a little get to know me, especially for those of you that are new to the fictional world of Kristy Berridge. Like any writer, I’m full of a bit of drama and have a decent flair for the theatrics on occasion, but for the purpose of this blog, I won’t go into the details of my side hustle selling kidneys on the black market.

Kidding. So here are fifteen things you may or may not know about me.

1. I never wanted to have children, but I now am the proud owner of a bouncing baby boy. We call him Archibald or pain-in-the-ass for short 😊
2. I prefer to wear dresses over a pair of shorts – I have a giant ass and sometimes it’s too hard to squeeze everything into certain fabrics.
3. I love to eat breakfast at any time of the day (cereal and fruit, not eggs and bacon).
4. I can’t let anyone stack my dishwasher – That shit is like a game of Tetris and no one can conquer the gaps like I can with plates and spoons.
5. I don’t eat any meat or fish, but do like the occasional bit of cheese.
6. I don’t like exercising at night or any time after lunch – It’s just cause I’m lazy ...
7. I hate it when people are on their phones during social occasions – i.e.: out at dinner, family BBQ etc etc.
8. I absolutely hate coriander.
9. I used to rub a pair of satin boxer shorts to go to sleep right up until I moved in with my husband 7 years ago – My best mate made me throw them out. I’m still hating on her for that.
10. I don’t believe in writer’s block, just shit ideas.
11. I need to be around nature, without it I perish – A tad dramatic, but mostly true.
12. I’m still annoyed and frankly amazed that no one has invented calorie free chocolate yet (one that doesn’t make you shit yourself).
13. Ironically, I’d rather read a health and wellness magazine than a novel.
14. I wish I’d become a spy or a secret agent so I could kill assholes in the name of government service.
15. No matter how far or wide I travel, it’s never enough for me. I think I’m a gypsy at heart.

Kristy 😊