Today's date: mid August 2020

Let's get straight into it.

1. Grammar/structure

Grammar is a huge aspect of everything you write. If you read the very first chapter I published in this book, you'll know that this is a big thing. 

With that being said, we're all humans. Who hasn't made mistakes with spelling and grammar when you're writing? All I'm saying is reread, reduce, repeat. 

Say it after me.

And again.

Reread: Please, please, please. Reread your work before you publish it! 

- This is legit the No.1 writer's rule. 

- Why? 

Because as you're writing there's no way you'll keep looking back for those spelling mistakes and grammar and sentence structures you're missing out on so all of your sentences might be clumped up together and are missing punctuations to keep them coherent so they're basically a crappy mess and no one likes to read a crappy mess okay. (Got my point here readers?)

Reduce: No one's writing is perfect. And one thing that is SO important that I CANNOT stress enough is that we're not looking for perfection. Period. We're not. 

- What we're looking for is to reduce the mistakes. 

We're all constantly learning, we're all trying to figure out things and learn more on writing. So for those mistakes we can spot, we're going to change them. Reduce them. 

Because we owe it to ourselves if the writing we published isn't the best we can do.

Repeat: pretty straightforward. Repeat this process again for each chapter. 

No one said writing is easy. If you want reads, I'm going to be harsh with you girl/boy: you need to work for it.

2. You're in your own bubble.

You don't get it dude. 

You're in your own bubble. Ever heard of an echo chamber? It's like when Trump-lovers gather together in a circle and tell each other how much they love Trump, they're only reinforcing their own beliefs and shutting out all other voices from outside their circle. Hence they'll never open their minds towards new perspectives.

What does this mean?

If you're only talking to someone who loves your writing, you'll never going to get constructive feedback.

It means when someone thinks their project is so great and they're so deep-dived in it and they don't look around and see how other people are approaching their projects and doing it differently (maybe in a better way you're doing yours now), you'll always think your project is cool and enough. Which means you'll never improve. Ever.

Harsh. I know. That's what I'm here for, to give you the cold hard truths.

What should you do about it?

Read and communicate.

Read: pretty straightforward. It doesn't have to be people on this site. 

- I find it helpful when I switch genres and style. I'm used to writing long ass novels and stories with complicated plot twists and woahs. But I started reading short stories and realized the amount of impact they could deliver. 

So you guessed it: I switched my style. 

- Just because it's something that you've always been familiar with doesn't mean you should just blindly follow it. 

You need to find what YOU excel and and what brings the best out of YOU. 

So I wrote Bottles. And that was my very first short story. 

And I loved writing it. When you love something, that's when you'll want to learn more about it, read about it, improve it.

Communicate: talk to people on the site, on other platforms, research. That's literally what these forums are out there for.

Get other people to read your work. Find people who offer criques (like this great book!) who will offer you awesome insights for free. Yes - for. Free.

That way you can really improve your skills and gain more reads and people who love your ideas and style of writing.

With that being said...

🚨I'm doing a thorough critique on a chapter of your choice (including tips on how to improve and a shoutout on my recommendations list) to 2 awesome writers!

If this is something you'd be interested in, here's how you let me know:

1. Comment your username here.

2. Your book title (must be published on your page).

3. 3 things you're struggling the most with your writing right now.

4. The title of your fav Netflix series/movie! (need it for Netflix and chill, obviously🙄)

5. Comment the usernames of 5 of the most talented writers you think that are on this platform - tag them so I can find them!

I'll be doing a random draw 2 weeks from now and will publish the winners here on 19th September 2020. That's a few weeks from now - early entries will get a read from me as well!

So bookmark this book to keep yourself updated!

Last thing:

Thank you. Thank you so, so much for keeping with me till the end. I poured my heart into making this entire guide and I'm so happy I could come back and continue it. If you bore with me till now, haha, gimme a thumbs up👍🏼

I love you and can't wait to hear what your comments are.

Tell me how I can improve my page here (anything is welcomed no matter good or bad because I genuinely want to improve this experience for you). Or let me know what you'd like me to help you with, and I'll make that my next focused topic.

(Also, I'm also that bad bitch that deleted parts of her book because she feels like she doesn't need them anymore despite knowing the reads would go down... the truth is I just don't feel like those parts are necessary anymore, regardless of how many reads I have. The importance is the quality, not quantity.)

I'm back witches!!