A Writer's Wanderings

              Writing a story can be an intimidating experience, whether it be fictional or nonfictional, like a memoir. As a creative writer myself, I understand this and have come up with several techniques and tips to help me and my peers with our story writing process. Here are just some of the most important of those tips.           1.  Have an idea of where the plot will go by outlining it in some way     This doesn’t mean that you need to have every detail known and decided before you start writing. You don’t even need to know the ending, but having a loose idea of the plot and storyline can be beneficial in giving you a skeleton to flesh out. As you write you will take some things away, add other things, change things, and be surprised by your own intuition and brain. This can be difficult to start, however, without having a foundation, no matter how rocky, to start out with. A writer can...

Horror stories have been around for about the same amount of time that storytelling itself has. Whether it’s as a part of a culture’s beliefs or just something for scaring your friends, there is something alluring to horror. But some horror stories are better than others, and these stories usually incorporate a few different methods that really sucks the reader in and leaves an impression. First, a good horror story must be a good story first. When it comes to books, the horror should only be one element in it. There shouldn’t be a complete dependence on being dark, gruesome, or disturbing. Instead, it should follow a similar structure to any other story, it should have characters, plot and conflict, with proper development for all three. Otherwise, it comes off as the literary equivalent of a jumpscare. Now for shorter stories, like ones often found online, I would say to incorporate the reader into the story. This is tricky to do with a novel, but is easier to do with the on...