Archive for the 'writing tips' Category

Online writing visitors, their total numbers and the keywords they use for your online book or blog are vital information

Published on December 12, 2008 in Writing, online writing, writing help and writing tips. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .
Statcounter provides excellent and free visitor statistics for my online writing sites that I find very adequate

Statcounter.com provides excellent and free visitor statistics for my online writing sites that I find very adequate

Yesterday I discussed the importance of using online writing tools like Google’s Webmaster tools to help work with the search engines to improve the quality of your online writing site or blog for Web indexing purposes.

Today, I would like to talk more about monitoring your online writing site so you get a better understanding of your total visitor numbers and also what your online readers are looking for when they come to your site.

Online writers might live in a creative dream world all of their own as far as their friends are concerned but the one thing an online writer can’t be uncertain about is the number of visitors that are coming to read his or her online writing sites or blogs or the visitors keywords used.

Your webspace might come with a statistics package that is adequate or you might prefer to use one of the many free hit counters that are available on the Web. Personally, although I already have access to visitor statistics for most of my sites, I usually prefer in addition the free services of Statcounter.com. It enables me to see the website traffic to all my web sites and blogs on one page and provides very useful information about keywords people are currently typing in to find my sites. Signing up is free and it is usually easy to add the code to each page by including it as part of your blog template.

Of course, once you have started tracking the volume of readers that are visiting your online writing, you will be concerned with the trend which hopefully will be rising as the weeks pass and you put more writing online. Statcounter.com enables you to monitor this closely.

More online writing tips and help for the online writer tomorrow :-)

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott – online  writer

Novel writing – a scary emotional roller-coaster but success wins you a friend for life

Published on November 14, 2008 in Writing, novel writing, writer's block and writing tips. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Novel writing is fun but scary. With several novels / novellas under my belt, I know and still bear the scars. If you are interested, check them out at my Free Online Novels and Novellas blog where I also discuss free online novels by other authors too.

Novel writing is completely exhausting but wonderfully absorbing. It draws you in and gives you somewhere else to live. The characters, with whom you are spending so much time, become really important in your life like new friends. As you go about your day-to-day  life, you start wondering how they would respond to that bit of news or this particular event. You re-live a scene and feel the fear, love, hatred or joy your character felt. Your characters are you but, as your novel progresses, you may also find that you are becoming your characters.

I love novel writing. It is the ultimate form of escape. It is a full-time job. It is indulgent. It rocks like no other writing experience I know. Writing a flash fiction or short story has a special pleasure of its own but there is no greater joy than in finishing a novel. You lovingly flick through the pages with all their memories, revealed or kept secretly in the background. The novel has become a living entity and will thereafter be important in your life. Like a child, it has been born, it lives on and will never go away. It is a friend or burden for life.

But novel writing is a big gamble. It is a one shot gun. You need to be very certain that the novel is going to achieve your objectives. These objectives may be personal, as in writing your life’s story to work out some feelings, or aimed at making money through conventional publishing. Whatever your reasons, the decision to write a novel is so huge that it cannot be undertaken lightly.

However, if you decide to embark on this roller-coaster emotional ride of your lifetime and write a novel, I wish you all the luck, good fortune and stamina you will need. Like a friend who has accompanied you to the station, I feel envy that I will not be travelling with you to all those exciting places but my own personal path lies amid the short stories, articles and flash fictions of my small home town – at least for now.

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott – online author

Writing tips – how to write stories with a twist in the tale by Rob Hopcott

Published on November 10, 2008 in Writing and writing tips. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

One of my top writing tips is about how to make the writing of stories with a twist in the tale easier. A twist in the tail of your story is one of the best ways of making it satisfying for the reader.

Quite simply, a twist in the tale means that the readers assumptions  up to that point (the tail end of the story) are incorrect. It is not a question of the reader being wrong, it is rather that a natural belief based on the reader’s prejudices or reader’s conventional wisdom’s have led to one point of view which then needs to be revised substantially to an altered viewpoint at the end of the story.

In my flash fiction story My Perfect Lover, we hear about how ideal a lover is and we make assumptions which we then have to change completely in the last line – the twist in the tale.

Here’s the killer writing tip for writing a story with a twist in the tale.

Write it backwards, That’s it. Simple really!

Start by thinking up a number of misconception situations. Here are several examples.

  1. The man is in fact a woman
  2. The woman is a man
  3. The narrator isn’t a human but is instead an animal or an inanimate object like a car
  4. The time isn’t today but, say, in the Stone Age or 18th century

Keep thinking up misconceptions until you come across one you like and then write your story. The story will end with a sentence that clears up the misconception but, until that point, the story must muddy the issue or, better still, imply the view or misconception that you wish the reader to assume until the last line.

How to put a twist in the tale is one of my top writing tips. I hope you get a lot of enjoyment from it :-)

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott – online author

Good writing is about creative ideas, dramatic openings, intriguing characters, atmospheric backgrounds and satisfying endings says Rob Hopcott

Published on November 6, 2008 in Writing, story writing, writing tips and writings. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Good writing, for me, is all about creative ideas, dramatic openings, intriguing characters, atmospheric backgrounds and satisfying endings when you are writing fiction.

As far as creative ideas are concerned, hiding away in a small dark room doesn’t work for me. I find my ideas come best when I am out with people. I find myself observing them and imagining them in different situations. Before I know where I am, a great story line is flowing and I need somewhere quiet to get it written down.

If the first line of a story doesn’t grab me, I rarely read on. Perhaps my attention span is not great but, for me, first impressions matter. Ensuring your opening line is dramatic is the least a writer can do. After all, if  a writer can’t be bothered to spend time on the opening line of two, how long are they going to spend writing the rest of the story?

We have all met really boring people in our lives. If your characters don’t intrigue, why would the reader read on? Ask yourself whether you would like to spend time with your character and that may show whether your readers will want to.

Characters exist in an environment. Everything they do relates to the world around them as well as the other characters. The more atmospheric the background to the action, the more likely the reader will feel they are inside the story and read on.

Having developed an interesting idea, opened dramatically and created intriguing characters against a well drawn background, if the story ends with a whimper the reader will be left unsatisfied. I really like a twist at the end but sometimes it is all about the characters resolving an issue. It may make them happier or sadder but it must resolve the story for the reader to want to read more of your writing which you hope will be the next thing they will want to do.

Good writing (good writting!) is difficult and has so many ingredients but, like a relationship, if the ingredients come together just right, the reader and the writer will both be smiling.

To read more hints and tips about good writing, check out my other site Hints for Writing Online Short Stories.

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott – online writer

Hints on writing great stories 1000s will want to read by Rob Hopcott

Published on November 29, 2006 in Writing and writing tips. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Without a doubt, everyone has a story in them, even if it is the story of their own life.

But, if you want your readers to read past the opening sentences, you’ll need to give them a really good reason to read more of your novel or short story.

Building your reputation is naturally vitally important for authors and your reader must want to remember your name so they can return to read more of your short stories, novels or novellas later.

All this is tough, challenging but rewarding, when you get it right and your readership grows.

Here are some ideas to help you write the perfect story.