Hey, Lully here!
As some of you may very well know, is coming up, so I thought I’d post some of my basic writing tips and also give you some help when it comes to those common errors.

1. Characters
a. Main Characters:
Because they’re the key part of any story, they should be worked on in detail. Get to know your characters as if they were close friends of yours. Find out what their interests are and give them flaws, quirks, fears, hobbies. Make them like a real person. Make them realistic. A realistic character is always so much easier to relate to and to understand than one without any personal background or CHARACTER.

*Character - a set of distinctive qualities that make up someone or something, especially someone’s qualities of mind and feeling.

Not sure how to go about creating your hopefully original character? I’ll make up a character sheet for you to use as an outline!

Name:
Nick-Name:
Gender:
Age:
Height:
Weight:
H. Color:
E. Color:
Skin Tone:
Temperament (common state of mind):
Likes:
Dislikes:
Flaws/Quirks:
Fears/Phobias:
Hobbies:
Misc (extra information):

b. Supporting Characters:
These guys play a pretty important role in a story as well. Your main characters need other people to interact with to get them further into the plot. Supporting characters don’t need quite as many details as your main characters, but you should give them distinctive qualities as well.


2. Plot
a. Main Plot:
This is the part of the story that pretty much summarizes the whole book, novel, or fan fiction; whatever it is that you’ve chosen to write. The Main Plot is all the events that take place in your story that get your reader from: Once upon a time to The End.
Your plot definitely needs to be planned out well. There is a major difference between a great plot, a good plot, and a bad plot. A great plot will keep the reader focused, interested, and at the edge of their seat waiting for more with every flip of a page. A good plot will be a story worth reading, but not very memorable. And a bad plot will most likely never be completely read through and said story will be thrown out and completely forgotten. We don’t want our story to have bad plot. Bad plot is bad.

Alright, I hear you: “HELP! I have no idea how to plan my plot out! What should I do? Where should I start?”
If you come to me and ask this, the first thing I’ll tell you to do is find out what exactly your story is about. What’s the main goal for the main characters? Where do you want them to end up at the end of your story? For you mystery writers, it usually helps to know your ending and work from there, writing your story pretty much completely backwards.
And if that doesn’t help, I’ll tell you to write out a storyboard. What’s a storyboard, you ask? It’s simply a diagram of ideas that forms out like a web. It shows ideas that form off from other ideas and so on and so forth. Here’s an example, a very basic and vague example:

<-- Clicky!!! [please ignore the obvious typos]

Yup, pretty basic and vague I’d say. But really, that’s the basics of coming up with a storyboard. You should add more details than what I’ve given up there. You definitely need more details than that.

b. Subplot:
Your Subplot, if you have one, which I am very sure you most likely will whether you realize it or not, is the smaller plot that is going on inside of your Main Plot. Say you’re writing an action tale about a young brave hero who is out to save the world from t he Evil Doctor, and he has a little lady friend that follows him along. Your Main Plot would mostly likely be about how YBH gets closer and closer to defeating ED. Your Subplot could possibly be about YBH growing closer and closer with lady friend.
Subplots are usually used as fillers for when you need some amount of time to pass on in your story. They’re used often and half the time I doubt authors realize they’re doing so. I don’t when I’m writing half the time! Ha ha!

3. Writing Style
a. Sentence Format:
NO RUN-ON, NEVERENDING SENTENCES PLEASE! Just because Stephen King uses them, does not mean you have to. Hey, his books are good and all…after you’ve read them a good few hundred times. His sentences often confuse people because they’re so lengthy and contain almost too much information. Describing in detail is good, but you only need so much. People read to use their imagination, they don’t want you turning books into television where everything is EXACTLY the way the director envisioned it.

b. Paragraph Format:
I know a lot of people who think writing in long paragraphs is cool, makes you look smarter, and all that jazz. In fact, I used to do it, too. Let me let you in on a little secret: It actually makes people NOT want to read your story. It doesn’t make you sound smarter, it just make you look like you have no idea what you’re really doing, to be quite honest.
Another thing, when you have dialogue in your paragraph: start a new paragraph each time a new person speaks. I know how much I hate reading stories where five people are talking in the same paragraph. It gets so completely confusing and I just stop reading altogether when I see people doing this.

4. Common Errors
Here's a list of common errors made with vocabulary. I'm a big nerd about grammar...

They're: "they" and "are" combined.
*They're going to the supermarket.

Their: Possessive.
*They left their belongings at the airport.

There: Where something is.
*It is over there.

To: A preposition or adverb indicating location, or position of someone or something.
*We went to the store.

Two: The number 2.
*We bought two apples.

Too: As well.
*I love bananas, too!

We're: "we" and "are" combined.
*We're going to the supermarket.

Were: Have been or had been doing.
* We were going to go to the store but we didn't have gas money.

Where: A question asking for location, position, or place.
* Where is the concert?

If any of you other writers out there have more common errors, please forward them to me so that I may add them to the list and help education our newer writers! Thank you!