Plot:
The plot is the main part of your story. You need to focus on your characters and rely on who they are to build your plot. Like the author says you cannot let the characters just not fit with the plot. When people believe in your characters and feel that they are real it develops a better plot. You cannot force a plot to happen with certain characters, it should develop based on them. It helps to picture what your characters would do certain situations. The plot will fall into place with the characters.
Dialogue:
Dialogue is huge in a story. Bad dialogue can ruin it while good dialogue will engage the readers more. To help ensure your writing good dialogue the author suggests saying the words aloud to see how it sounds. Seeing, how you can change the dialogue to improve it each time you read it. Another thing for good dialogue is that each character posses a different voice. When you read a your dialogue you should be able to tell which character said that. They cannot all sound the same because they are not the same person. Third way to have good dialogue is to have them talk to people that they hate or that they are completely different from. It makes things interesting. The better you know your characters and their voice, the more real your dialogue will sound.
Set Design:
When you are writing about a setting, it helps to imagine the setting as if it was a movie and you were watching what was happening and what it looked like. You also need to have the setting fit the character. How would they keep their room is a good question to ask yourself because the setting helps develop the character. Just like all our rooms represent a part of us.
False Starts:
When writing about characters you need to spend a lot of time with them. You may think that you know them and when you begin to write you realize that there is a lot you do not know about them. You may know what is on the surface but what is underneath. You need to figure what is underneath and what drives them. When writing you cannot just try to make someone do something or be in a situation that does not seem to fit them. Knowing them beyond whats on the surface helps fully develop them and the plot.
Plot Treatment:
Writers seem to have everything in their stories planned out, but in reality they do not. No one knows where their plot will take them perfectly. They may think they do but along the process of writing they realize information that they did not have before. Something along the way to where your going might change your plot completely and you end up somewhere you did not expect. You have to be willing to make changes to the plot and adjust it where it is needed. It takes a lot of hard work and editing to get a perfect plot.
How do you know when your done?
No one really has an answer to know when your done you just do. You just realize that you have taken the suggestions, read over your story, fixed what needed to be and just be done with it. You cannot strive over every detail to be perfect because the book will never be perfect. If you put everything you have into it then there is nothing more to do.
Looking around:
The job of a writer is to tell the story as you see it. You are an observer looking in on a story and taking notes about it. Writing down everything you see with detail to help the reader see it better. Learning more about yourself helps to present what is happening in a better, clearer way. You have to be open to everything and try to get your reader to see things in a new way.
The moral point of view
When writing you need to write about something you truly care about and want to convey to your readers. It gives you passion and a will to keep writing. It has to be something you believe with all your heart. Something that is not able to describe within one sentence. Your whole story has to be able to convey that one point that you believe.
Abbi's Thoughts 