The holiday cheer is peaking right now, and we at LivingWriter hope that everyone is having a blast with their vacation! After the year-long grind for your first drafts or final manuscripts or your month-long escapade with November’s NaNoWriMo, you deserve this break. 2023 is about to come. Are you ready for it? (cue in Taylor Swift) As the year comes to a close, we usually think of the new one...
Suzanne Collins’ Top 5 Writing Tips
Suzanne Collins built her reign of young adult fiction on top of the success of her most famous trilogy, The Hunger Games. People who have been inspired by Katniss’s courage and determination and want to write equally strong characters would like to know how Collins did it. Collins shared a few tips for aspiring writers who need some motivational words from an award-winning author, so we listed...
Stephen King’s Top 10 Writing Tips
Stephen King is a popular writer who’s written quite a bank of successful stories, from his first title “Carrie” to the timeless “The Shining.” Cementing his status as the King of Horror, it can be hard to see that he came from a beginning that’s just like any other writer. His success is built upon the “rejection slips impaled upon [the wall],” and he is no stranger to failure. However, having...
Using LivingWriter for NaNoWriMo 2022
October is well on its course, yet many writers are already looking forward to the next month. “Why,” you ask. Well, of course, because one of the biggest events in creative writing, NaNoWriMo 2022, is just right around the corner! Always the highly anticipated event by writers all over the world, the annual National Novel Writing Month, shortened to NaNoWriMo, has been an ever-popular...
Top 5 Best Fantasy Writers of All Time
The fantasy genre has a rich history of storied authors who have brought life to worlds not our own, and characters many would grow to love. Magic, fantastical creatures, and places larger than life sprung from these fantastic minds. We cannot simply imagine fantasy as it would be right now without creative authors who toil to write these stories for us. Among the long list of authors are a few...
Hero’s Journey Example with Harry Potter
The Hero’s Journey is a popular writing framework that outlines a main character’s journey from zero to hero. Famous movies and stories have been shown to fit the narrative pattern of the Hero’s Journey. One of those titles is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Given the fame of the story and the series in general, and other stories following the framework, there is success in the Hero’s...
Using the Hero’s Journey Archetype
Harry Potter, Spiderman, and The Lion King are all beloved stories of otherwise normal characters wrestling through trials and tribulations to transform into amazing heroes. Although they each have their unique characteristics, these stories follow a similar narrative pattern: the Hero’s Journey. The hero’s journey is a popular narrative structure first introduced by Joseph Campbell, and...
Tips on How to Write Magic Systems
In a world that does not exist in reality, anything can happen. Pigs can fly, the sun rises in the west, and humans can be anywhere they want to be at once. However, in that obviously chaotic world of limitless possibilities, profound stories that would be loved by generations of readers can’t bloom. For a fantasy story to be successful, the plot is half of the fun and the charm. The fantasy part...
How to Become a Better Writer in 2022
Writing seems pretty mundane; just string together words as the ideas manifest in your mind. However, anyone who has written more than a tweet understands that writing is more than just words. Writing is more than just words. Contrary to most people’s conception of writing (and creative work in general), writing is a skill that can be honed. It’s not a mystical gift from the gods; talent helps...
What Kind of Writer Are You?
As a writer, you have your own quirks and idiosyncratic characteristics when it comes to writing. From the way you gather inspiration to the way you structure your stories, you are often a unique writer with different writing habits compared to the others. As a writer, you have your own set of idiosyncrasies that can be unique to you (and your kind). However, these characteristics can often...