Sunday, 30 August 2015
Friday, 21 August 2015
Pro Tips - Inspiration
Finally got this video uploaded! The trouble I've had with my protips series!
Wednesday, 19 August 2015
Why Beta Readers Are Important
I know what you're thinking 'ah, having my work BETA read isn't important, I've checked it over myself, I don't need anybody else,' and I'm very sorry to tell you that actually, BETA's are really important. They read your work through and give you a second opinion, make sure you haven't left anything out or gone off track, check spelling/grammar mistakes, all of it. They're invaluable to writers, I should know, I suffered for years without one.
I've been writing whatever I could for years, and I've been posting it, otherwise this blog wouldn't be here, and I was rereading through everything before I posted it. But I always missed something, because inevitably we all miss mistakes when we're reading things we've written, and I never had it pointed it out to me. Usually, the case was that I would find the mistake, weeks after I had posted the piece of writing somewhere, and I would spend the rest of the day kicking myself for missing an apostrophe or completely screwing up a sentence. What makes this worse, is that I'm dyslexic, which affects my spelling and grammar terribly. I'm truly awful with it all, and I always feel paranoid, no matter how many times I check a piece of work, that there's a mistake in there. This is where my BETA comes in.
I have two separate BETA readers, for two separate stories. For fan fic, I have a wonderful woman called Nita, who reads through two chapters at a time and tells me every time I've put a wrong word in somewhere. She's brilliant, and picks up everything I miss on my own reads. For original fiction I post on Wattpad, my best friend Charlie BETA's for me, mostly because she has read all my original work, and a lot of my fan fic, and understands my brain process, so when I get complicated, she can see where I'm coming from. She also gives me a kick up the bum to get me to post said original fiction too, because I sometimes get too chicken to post it, but that isn't what this post is about, so I digress.
Anyway, the reason why I allow them to BETA my work is so I have the peace of mind that what I am posting makes sense and has everything spelled correctly. Without it, I would quite frankly, suck, and would push away potential readers with all my mistakes and sometimes complicated ideas. So when I have them read my work, I know that it is exactly how I want to present it. Everything makes sense, there are no overly complicated sentences, no words are spelled incorrectly, all the correct grammar is in place. It's all there, and I don't have to worry myself silly about it and distract myself from writing the rest of the story.
That is why BETA readers are so important, so you can have peace of mind about your own work, you can know for sure that everything you post is clear and easy to understand. Having misspelled words and grammatically incorrect sentences puts readers off, as they have to spend half their time deciphering what you have written. For them, they want to come in and read, not rewrite the entire piece of work! So if you have someone there who can do that before you post up your work, you're more likely to keep people reading, as they can simply enjoy your work without rewriting it. It's a win win situation for everybody!
There is generally only one problem with this, finding a BETA reader is hard. Nita offered to do the job for me months ago, and I asked Charlie because I was doing a similar thing for her. So I was lucky with finding my two, for others it will be difficult. But, there are ways to find BETA's, so don't fret!
An easy way to find a BETA if you are on Wattpad is to simply go into the 'Improve Your Writing' section of the discussion boards and look around for a dedicated thread to help. If you can't find one there, start a thread up yourself, asking if anybody would like to do it! Wattpad is filled with people who want to help fellow writers, so you're bound to at least be pointed in the right direction!
If you are on a different site, then you can put a message at the bottom of your piece, asking if anybody would be kind enough to BETA for you. That isn't as guaranteed, but it can't hurt to try!
Writing forums are generally also a good place to look. Though with all these methods, I should say that you may have to offer a BETA for BETA deal. So you read through someone else's work, and they'll do the same for you. It's an easy enough thing to do, and a good, free way to read someone else's work before anybody else!
But if you really are stuck for finding BETA readers, there is one website which will do half the work for you. It's called Hemingway, and it's a completely free website which helps improve your writing. You just have to copy and paste in your work, and it'll check the entire thing, and highlight every mistake you make. It'll point out hard to read sentences, passive voice (a bad thing for writing) and other such mistakes. And while it can't tell you if you've forgotten to add something in or you've gone off track, it'll at least help you make your writing easier to read, and that is something!
So don't sit back and think you can simply write and post, try and find someone to help you with your work, you'll become a better writer for it, and keep readers too. BETA's are a great recourse - never skip out on them!
I've been writing whatever I could for years, and I've been posting it, otherwise this blog wouldn't be here, and I was rereading through everything before I posted it. But I always missed something, because inevitably we all miss mistakes when we're reading things we've written, and I never had it pointed it out to me. Usually, the case was that I would find the mistake, weeks after I had posted the piece of writing somewhere, and I would spend the rest of the day kicking myself for missing an apostrophe or completely screwing up a sentence. What makes this worse, is that I'm dyslexic, which affects my spelling and grammar terribly. I'm truly awful with it all, and I always feel paranoid, no matter how many times I check a piece of work, that there's a mistake in there. This is where my BETA comes in.
I have two separate BETA readers, for two separate stories. For fan fic, I have a wonderful woman called Nita, who reads through two chapters at a time and tells me every time I've put a wrong word in somewhere. She's brilliant, and picks up everything I miss on my own reads. For original fiction I post on Wattpad, my best friend Charlie BETA's for me, mostly because she has read all my original work, and a lot of my fan fic, and understands my brain process, so when I get complicated, she can see where I'm coming from. She also gives me a kick up the bum to get me to post said original fiction too, because I sometimes get too chicken to post it, but that isn't what this post is about, so I digress.
Anyway, the reason why I allow them to BETA my work is so I have the peace of mind that what I am posting makes sense and has everything spelled correctly. Without it, I would quite frankly, suck, and would push away potential readers with all my mistakes and sometimes complicated ideas. So when I have them read my work, I know that it is exactly how I want to present it. Everything makes sense, there are no overly complicated sentences, no words are spelled incorrectly, all the correct grammar is in place. It's all there, and I don't have to worry myself silly about it and distract myself from writing the rest of the story.
That is why BETA readers are so important, so you can have peace of mind about your own work, you can know for sure that everything you post is clear and easy to understand. Having misspelled words and grammatically incorrect sentences puts readers off, as they have to spend half their time deciphering what you have written. For them, they want to come in and read, not rewrite the entire piece of work! So if you have someone there who can do that before you post up your work, you're more likely to keep people reading, as they can simply enjoy your work without rewriting it. It's a win win situation for everybody!
There is generally only one problem with this, finding a BETA reader is hard. Nita offered to do the job for me months ago, and I asked Charlie because I was doing a similar thing for her. So I was lucky with finding my two, for others it will be difficult. But, there are ways to find BETA's, so don't fret!
An easy way to find a BETA if you are on Wattpad is to simply go into the 'Improve Your Writing' section of the discussion boards and look around for a dedicated thread to help. If you can't find one there, start a thread up yourself, asking if anybody would like to do it! Wattpad is filled with people who want to help fellow writers, so you're bound to at least be pointed in the right direction!
If you are on a different site, then you can put a message at the bottom of your piece, asking if anybody would be kind enough to BETA for you. That isn't as guaranteed, but it can't hurt to try!
Writing forums are generally also a good place to look. Though with all these methods, I should say that you may have to offer a BETA for BETA deal. So you read through someone else's work, and they'll do the same for you. It's an easy enough thing to do, and a good, free way to read someone else's work before anybody else!
But if you really are stuck for finding BETA readers, there is one website which will do half the work for you. It's called Hemingway, and it's a completely free website which helps improve your writing. You just have to copy and paste in your work, and it'll check the entire thing, and highlight every mistake you make. It'll point out hard to read sentences, passive voice (a bad thing for writing) and other such mistakes. And while it can't tell you if you've forgotten to add something in or you've gone off track, it'll at least help you make your writing easier to read, and that is something!
So don't sit back and think you can simply write and post, try and find someone to help you with your work, you'll become a better writer for it, and keep readers too. BETA's are a great recourse - never skip out on them!
Saturday, 8 August 2015
The Wattpad Experience
Whoa, can it be, a blog post that isn't a film review?! My God, call the presses, this is news worthy!
But yes, I'm going to blog about something that isn't a film review, as I feel like I've exhausted that for the past couple of weeks. Instead, today I'm going to talk about my experience with the website Wattpad.
Now I'm fairly new to Wattpad (as in, only a few months into my exploration of the site) but I feel like I've got a bit of experience with it, or at least enough to talk about my awakening to the site. I'd been hearing about it for years, and decided to give it a go when I wanted to start posting some 'world building' short stories to do with a novel series I have planned. I wanted to post them to see how audiences reacted, as the idea is quite complicated at first, to see if I should go ahead with writing this novel or not. So I made an account, wrote the first piece, and posted it, expecting it to magically gain readers like my work has done in the past.
You see, for six years now, I've been posting on official forums, fanfiction.net and AO3, and there I've barely had to do any advertising to get readers. I simply posted my work and watched the view count rise, only really bothering to tweet and post links to tumblr simply to inform anybody who followed me that things like that were available if they wanted to check out my writing. But most of my readership came from the website itself, they just somehow discovered my work, and that was that.
With Wattpad though, it's different. The website has a far, far larger readership than I could have possibly imagined, and so many more books out there too. This means that finding readers is incredibly difficult, new authors get lost in a sea of more popular and experienced authors, and generally don't get noticed without some serious self promotion. The thought was very daunting, as I didn't have a clue on where to start with that, but I've started to figure it out.
Here's what I've learnt so far:
Firstly, tagging your work is important. When posting stories to Wattpad, tags work a treat, as your story is then put in with all the other stories also tagged with that thing. So when someone is searching for, let's say, vampire work, yours will also come up with the rest of that work. That's half your job sorted already.
Second, an interesting cover and blurb go a long way. Even after tagging, nobody is going to click on a book and start reading if they don't know what it's about. So putting an eye catching blurb will help draw people in. The cover is a great advert too, it draws people in, be it by the colours, or the images on it. Nobody clicks on work which is simply the blurred out version of the author's profile picture. But before you all start shouting I CAN'T PHOTOSHOP! at me, there's an app to help out, I'm not sure if it's on android, but at least on apple products, there's an app specifically for Wattpad which allows you to make covers. It provides with thousands of images, text fonts and effects for your work, so it's easy to whip up a cover. I did mine in five minutes flat, and I have never touched photoshop in my life, so anyone can do it!
Thirdly, get involved with the clubs. There's a club section on Wattpad, where you can talk to other readers and writers about anything you want. So get in there and start talking to people, from my experience they're very accommodating and lovely people, who will accept anybody. All you do is start replying on threads, and soon you'll have people talking back to you, just like anywhere else on the internet. The difference is that here, you can talk about your work, talk about the bits you find difficult, the bits you find the best to write, and also get help when you need it too. With these comments, it is possibly to interest someone enough to see what you're writing, and you may just get a reader out of it. At the very least you'll find some like-minded writers, which is still a huge resource in your arsenal as a writer. A word of warning though - do NOT just post comments saying READ MY WORK, READY MY WORK or anything of the sort, you will soon become very, very unpopular and possibly kicked off the site. Be polite and respectful, discuss your work, but don't shamelessly post pleads for people to read your story everywhere.
Fourthly, join a book club. There's literally hundreds of book clubs on Wattpad, where other authors will read chapters of your work and comment on them, providing you do the same for them. They can provide constructive criticism when it is needed, and offer opinions which can really help you with your story. It's better to know that something isn't working and fix it, than stare at it and not figure out why you don't have anybody reading your work. The book clubs also work as an advertising agent too, and gets people reading your story, a lot of the time, people who read your story as part of the book club stay on to read more, continuing to leave comments. And when others who find it by chance see that it has a lot of reads/comments/votes, they'll be more likely to read it too. Book clubs are basically a win win situation, giving you views and comments on your stories, and that can never be a bad thing!
Fifthly, read and comment on other's work. Reading and comment on other people's work gains you friends, and lets others know that you're out there. Some may see your profile in the comments and click on your profile to check you out, and then go on to read your story. Some writers do it too, they see someone who loves their story and decide to check out yours. Also, just commenting on other people's work makes them feel good, and there's some amazing stories out there, so go and read them so you don't miss out.
And lastly, post the links online everywhere! I've said this before in a video on my youtube channel, but seriously, post the links everywhere. Post on twitter and tumblr, tag them in both places too! Post the link to your story on all your social media, so as many people see it as possible. There will be people out there who will click the link to see what you're posting about, and so will gain you some readers, or at least some reads. Give it a go, it can't hurt to try.
I've tried all those things and it's actually not going too badly for me at the moment, I'm not currently getting the viewership I had hoped for, but I am getting there, and that's the main thing. It's making me appreciate the process more than ever, before readers almost dropped into my lap, now I'm working for it, which I feel is better for me (and possibly my ego). It's a steady process, and I must say I'm enjoying it.
So if you were thinking of joining Wattpad and posting stuff yourself, I would recommend you do it, but be prepared to spend a lot of time advertising and networking. It takes up a lot of time, but it is worth it in the end. I hope this blog helps in some small way or other.
Oh, and if you want to check out my Wattpad profile, it's here.
But yes, I'm going to blog about something that isn't a film review, as I feel like I've exhausted that for the past couple of weeks. Instead, today I'm going to talk about my experience with the website Wattpad.
Now I'm fairly new to Wattpad (as in, only a few months into my exploration of the site) but I feel like I've got a bit of experience with it, or at least enough to talk about my awakening to the site. I'd been hearing about it for years, and decided to give it a go when I wanted to start posting some 'world building' short stories to do with a novel series I have planned. I wanted to post them to see how audiences reacted, as the idea is quite complicated at first, to see if I should go ahead with writing this novel or not. So I made an account, wrote the first piece, and posted it, expecting it to magically gain readers like my work has done in the past.
You see, for six years now, I've been posting on official forums, fanfiction.net and AO3, and there I've barely had to do any advertising to get readers. I simply posted my work and watched the view count rise, only really bothering to tweet and post links to tumblr simply to inform anybody who followed me that things like that were available if they wanted to check out my writing. But most of my readership came from the website itself, they just somehow discovered my work, and that was that.
With Wattpad though, it's different. The website has a far, far larger readership than I could have possibly imagined, and so many more books out there too. This means that finding readers is incredibly difficult, new authors get lost in a sea of more popular and experienced authors, and generally don't get noticed without some serious self promotion. The thought was very daunting, as I didn't have a clue on where to start with that, but I've started to figure it out.
Here's what I've learnt so far:
Firstly, tagging your work is important. When posting stories to Wattpad, tags work a treat, as your story is then put in with all the other stories also tagged with that thing. So when someone is searching for, let's say, vampire work, yours will also come up with the rest of that work. That's half your job sorted already.
Second, an interesting cover and blurb go a long way. Even after tagging, nobody is going to click on a book and start reading if they don't know what it's about. So putting an eye catching blurb will help draw people in. The cover is a great advert too, it draws people in, be it by the colours, or the images on it. Nobody clicks on work which is simply the blurred out version of the author's profile picture. But before you all start shouting I CAN'T PHOTOSHOP! at me, there's an app to help out, I'm not sure if it's on android, but at least on apple products, there's an app specifically for Wattpad which allows you to make covers. It provides with thousands of images, text fonts and effects for your work, so it's easy to whip up a cover. I did mine in five minutes flat, and I have never touched photoshop in my life, so anyone can do it!
Thirdly, get involved with the clubs. There's a club section on Wattpad, where you can talk to other readers and writers about anything you want. So get in there and start talking to people, from my experience they're very accommodating and lovely people, who will accept anybody. All you do is start replying on threads, and soon you'll have people talking back to you, just like anywhere else on the internet. The difference is that here, you can talk about your work, talk about the bits you find difficult, the bits you find the best to write, and also get help when you need it too. With these comments, it is possibly to interest someone enough to see what you're writing, and you may just get a reader out of it. At the very least you'll find some like-minded writers, which is still a huge resource in your arsenal as a writer. A word of warning though - do NOT just post comments saying READ MY WORK, READY MY WORK or anything of the sort, you will soon become very, very unpopular and possibly kicked off the site. Be polite and respectful, discuss your work, but don't shamelessly post pleads for people to read your story everywhere.
Fourthly, join a book club. There's literally hundreds of book clubs on Wattpad, where other authors will read chapters of your work and comment on them, providing you do the same for them. They can provide constructive criticism when it is needed, and offer opinions which can really help you with your story. It's better to know that something isn't working and fix it, than stare at it and not figure out why you don't have anybody reading your work. The book clubs also work as an advertising agent too, and gets people reading your story, a lot of the time, people who read your story as part of the book club stay on to read more, continuing to leave comments. And when others who find it by chance see that it has a lot of reads/comments/votes, they'll be more likely to read it too. Book clubs are basically a win win situation, giving you views and comments on your stories, and that can never be a bad thing!
Fifthly, read and comment on other's work. Reading and comment on other people's work gains you friends, and lets others know that you're out there. Some may see your profile in the comments and click on your profile to check you out, and then go on to read your story. Some writers do it too, they see someone who loves their story and decide to check out yours. Also, just commenting on other people's work makes them feel good, and there's some amazing stories out there, so go and read them so you don't miss out.
And lastly, post the links online everywhere! I've said this before in a video on my youtube channel, but seriously, post the links everywhere. Post on twitter and tumblr, tag them in both places too! Post the link to your story on all your social media, so as many people see it as possible. There will be people out there who will click the link to see what you're posting about, and so will gain you some readers, or at least some reads. Give it a go, it can't hurt to try.
I've tried all those things and it's actually not going too badly for me at the moment, I'm not currently getting the viewership I had hoped for, but I am getting there, and that's the main thing. It's making me appreciate the process more than ever, before readers almost dropped into my lap, now I'm working for it, which I feel is better for me (and possibly my ego). It's a steady process, and I must say I'm enjoying it.
So if you were thinking of joining Wattpad and posting stuff yourself, I would recommend you do it, but be prepared to spend a lot of time advertising and networking. It takes up a lot of time, but it is worth it in the end. I hope this blog helps in some small way or other.
Oh, and if you want to check out my Wattpad profile, it's here.
Friday, 7 August 2015
Tearing My Heart Inside Out
You know I promised to not do a review for my next blog post? Yeah, this doesn't count, as it's a video blog and not a written one... That's my story and I'm sticking with it!
Friday, 24 July 2015
Saturday, 18 July 2015
Ant Man - Small Hero, Big Film
I know this blog is supposed to be reviews, writing tips and generally about writing, but currently I seem to be on a bit of a reviewing trip. Blame the fact that I've been watching a lot of films recently, next week I'll write something about writing, deal? Deal.
Anyway, yesterday I saw Marvel's latest release - Ant Man. And I'm seeing it again. Tonight. Because it's really, really good.
It's safe to say that I automatically love anything Marvel ever releases, but I do love each film in various degrees. Age Of Ultron, Assemble and Guardians Of The Galaxy are my absolute favourites, for their story lines, characters, and general awesomeness. Then everything else falls into place afterwards, each Marvel release holding a special place in my heart. Ant Man has now joined his fellow heroes, and did so within ten minutes of the film's opening.
The film follows the story of of Scott, an ex-con trying to go straight for his daughter, as he's ex-wife isn't going to allow him to see her until he has a stable job and a flat. But then he hears of a 'big score' and falls back into cat burgling, and without giving too much away, falls into becoming the Ant Man to basically save the world from The Yellow Jacket, all while having quite a good laugh.
Some critics say that Ant Man is as funny as Guardians Of The Galaxy, and while I wouldn't go as far as that, I would say the film is very funny in places. Namely, when Ant Man fights Captain America's friend Falcon. I was nearly crying I was laughing so hard as I watched the two fight, and nearly screamed when I first saw Falcon turn up, even though I knew he was making a guest appearance. The pairs fight was incredibly funny, mostly because of what they were saying to each other (and well, watching a full grown man get beaten up by someone the size of an ant is pretty damn funny) and I'm now sure it's my favourite scene of the entire film. It was comedy gold, and classic Marvel.
Now, to address the big elephant in the room regarding Ant Man, the thing that has sent a lot of Marvel fans into uproar. Wasp being written out of the film. For those who don't know, Wasp is Ant Man's friend, and she possesses a similar suit, which can make her shrink and resize just like Ant Man. In the comic world, the two go out on missions together all the time, and helped found The Avengers themselves. Yet in this film, Wasp has been written out of it almost entirely. Lots of fans were disappointed in the revelation that Wasp would not be in this film, and I must say I was as well. I'm a firm believer in Woman Power and strong female characters kicking ass with the good (and bad) guys, just like Black Widow. I haven't read the comics so I can't say that I loved Wasp before watching the film or anything, but I was a bit disappointed to know we wouldn't get another female superhero.
And then I wasn't disappointed. After watching the film I understand completely why it was necessary to write Wasp out, as it would have made Ant Man's mission pointless. There was no need for more than one person to shrink to steal the Yellow Jacket. If Wasp had been there originally, Scott wouldn't have needed to become the Ant Man. So I can completely understand why Marvel decided to change her story line and have her in an alternative dimension after a previous mission went wrong twenty years ago. But I think Marvel will pleasantly surprise you in the first end credits scene, because again, without spoiling the film for others, they give scope for Wasp to return. By Ant Man 2, we'll have Wasp, and one who has already proven herself to be a brilliant fighter and a brilliant superhero who can hold herself up with the big boys.
I would end this review there, but there's just one other scene I want to talk about. The finale end credit scene, involving a tie in to Captain America: Civil War. That's right, at the end of this film, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY BARNES TURN UP. It took all I had to not scream at the sight of them, I'm a huge fan of Bucky Barnes, and love Captain America, and am getting ridiculously excited for Civil War. So to see them, and have a small hint of trouble in Camp Avenger, oh it ended the film perfectly. The scene is literally about two minutes long, and Bucky doesn't say a word, but oh it's giving me so much more excitement for Civil War! It may even mean that Ant Man turns up for Civil War to help Steve with Bucky, as for some reason Steve can't help Bucky by himself. It's already stated that The Avengers need Ant Man at the end of the main film, but the question is : why does Steve need Scott to help Bucky? and why can't Tony help? It's all very intriguing and I for one cannot wait for the next film Marvel throws at me!
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