Wednesday, November 9, 2011

#freeadvice Day 3

Mind control is cheating and has already been thoroughly explored by Star Trek. Find another way to move your plot along.---Janice Sperry blogs at Come Out When You're Happy
In other words, don't fall back on overused standbys and cliches to make your story interesting. We can actually make this a really fun game. Replace a cliche for "mind control" (say reading minds), and replace a title for "Star Trek" (say Twilight or True Blood). Give me your best twists on Janice's advice!

And keep your own #freeadvice coming!

Happy writing!

3 comments:

Angela Cothran said...

Can I give more advice? I'm a bit of a writing advice junkie :)

My advice: READ! READ! READ! It will make you a better writer and keep you aware of what is already on the market.

I'm so surprised how many writers don't do this. It makes no sense to me.

www.livetowrite1.blogspot.com

Janice Sperry said...

Keeping your couple apart to keep the sexual tension high has already been thoroughly explored by Moonlighting.

Making the bad guy the father has already been thoroughly explored by Star Wars.

Vampires have already been thoroughly explored by EVERYONE!

heh. This is fun. Thanks for picking mine Vickie! And also for posting a link to my blog. It's only been going for a few months but I like to think it's brilliant.

David P. King said...

Like Angela said, but I'd like to add, READ YOUR GENRE! Watch your genre. Find your audience and befriend them. Expose yourself to enough and cliches will be that much easier to avoid.

Great stuff, Vickie. Keep it come'n. :)