Writing Tips: A Guest Post by Tamuna Tsertsvadze

I am a writer with 5 years of book writing and 2 years of screenwriting and game writing experience. Even though I write for quite long, I am still improving day by day, and learning more and more. I want to share my experience and some tips with others too.

Generally, it is hard to give tips to aspiring writers, because everyone writes with their own style and their own rules. Writing is not something you can put in a frame and label as you want. Even though we often see books separated in specific genres, we can still understand that the so-called ‘borders’ and ‘frames’ aren’t quite solid, but rather barely visible – that said, a book of one genre can very often belong to multiple other genres, or even create a blend of genres. Thus, there is no specific outlined rule for writing and literature. One writes to their heart’s content. Fiction writing is a form of art. And art has no rules whatsoever – it is where people can feel completely free and unleash their imagination to its fullest. 

And still, there are some basic guidelines we should follow, as when you think of writing as no more a hobby but a serious profession, another problem arises – your writing should appeal to other people too and not only yourself. Every writer should know a great deal of psychology in order to write well and make the people like their stories.

Every book a person takes in his hands contains the world and characters they’re familiar with. Otherwise, no one will be interested in the work. So, the
1^st rule is: be realistic. People enjoy reading books about the problems they find around themselves in everyday life, and characters who they can relate to. 

Of course, creating a realistic world doesn’t mean fantasy writers do a wrong thing. Realistic world means not the so-called ‘real world’ we live in, but the real passions, emotions, events we experience every day. So even if you have a fantasy world, the feelings must remain sincere. You mustn’t make your reader feel that the world you’re writing about is fake, and the characters are unnatural. They must believe the world you’re writing about exists somewhere beyond the stars, and even though they know it is fiction, they must feel somewhere in a deep corner of the universe that world still exists. 

2^nd rule: do NOT create perfect characters. Every one of us has flaws. And as ancient stories tell, even an angel had flaws, no matter angels were ‘perfect beings’. And to be more precise, the term ‘perfect’ is relative. Something that one considers a quality, others might consider a flaw. That is why a perfect being doesn’t exist, so even if you’re writing about ‘perfect beings’ such as superhuman aliens or angels, it is OKAY to give them flaws, because even if they’re so-called ‘perfect beings’, there will appear somewhere an ‘imperfect being’ who says those creatures are full of flaws. That is just how the world is. It is only natural for a character to have their flaws. To be honest, the more flaws, fears and problems they have and the harder they are to overcome, the more perfect our story becomes.

3^rd rule: Plot is NOT the key in the writing. It is the craft of the writer – HOW you tell the story, not WHAT you tell. To explain better – everything you can think of now, no matter how original it may seem at first, has already been thought of and written down. Main is now to raise your own voice and retell it only the way YOU can think of. That said – be original, do not be afraid to pour your feelings and emotions down on the paper. You might even find it helpful to listen to battle music while you write action scenes, listen to sad music when you write about someone’s slow death, turn on romantic music when you’re writing a romance scene… Music awakens the deepest emotions of human hearts, and when you listen to music, those emotions flow within you. It is a general truth that whenever the writer writes with their hearts full of passion and emotions, the reader who afterward reads the story, can feel the emotions writer had undergone while writing. It is true – our writing passes down our feelings and emotions as well. So you must be emotional yourself while you’re writing, in order to awaken emotions in your readers afterward.

The 4^th rule would be, – feel YOURSELF what you’re writing.

And now, the hardest part of any writer – we consider our stories great, but people don’t read. Why is that? There are several issues – 1^st, of course, is marketing. When you are a self-publisher (like me) you must be ready to work not only your writing, but also the marketing skills. 

As for the 2^nd issue – it is often that we don’t write according to the right audience, and right genre. No matter what I said of genres before – that they usually blend in each other in a single book – some rules still exist. So the best advice on this behalf would be – not to read articles about genre specifics that you find on the internet – but to read the books belonging to the genre you’re writing in. Books are the best teachers – they show you the craft of other writers, their styles and their passions, their methods and ways. So you know your genre best when you read books of that genre. 

That is basically all I can advise to the aspiring writers. As I said, we all are improving each day, and so the final rule is that practice makes perfect, so do not fear any obstacle put before you, and write and write as much as you can. Only with hard work, strong will and undying enthusiasm can one become a ‘professional writer’ (in inverted commas because that term too is relative ;) One can never satisfy everyone on the planet with their work ;) Critics will come from everywhere). 

Thank you very much for reading this post! I wish you the best of luck in creating your masterpieces! ^_^

About Tamuna:
Tamuna was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. She started writing at the age of 7 when she read the first book that inspired her - Thomas Mayne Reid's "The Giraffe Hunters". Since that day she loves both reading and writing.
She wrote her first serious work when she was 11 years old, a 100 paged story inspired by anime/manga Naruto, which was one of her favourite anime series. 
You can view Tamuna's books by clicking here.