Having trouble deciding what to write about yourself?
Whether you’re writing for your journal, your memoir, or a class assignment, you have plenty of topics about yourself to choose from.
You’re more interesting than you might think.
So are the people you live with, work with, and meet — if only for a moment.
Once you look through the prompts listed below, the real challenge will be choosing which one to write about first.
You know where your characters live and the places they visit in your story.
You can picture the places clearly.
But how do your readers know whether your main character lives in a village, town or city?
And how do you make sure they see your setting as clearly as you do?
What is the population of a village, anyway?
Or, in a village vs. town question, how do you distinguish the two?
When one of your characters is going through something, how do you communicate that to your readers?
Think of a scene in one of your own stories where the protagonist is in a foul mood.
Maybe the other characters picked that up quickly enough, but did your reader?
When that magic happens, it’s all in the words you use — and the ones you leave out.
When it comes to that first group, we’ve got a negative moods list you might like.
Mood and tone are essential elements of any written work.
Both come from the author’s mind but are also influenced by the reader’s.
Both factor into a reader’s experience. Both make a story more affecting and memorable.
But what is the difference between mood and tone?
Generally speaking, one is used to create the other.
But we’re going beyond that to show examples of both tone and mood in context.
The goal here is to help you make the most of both.
Your story’s main character is the most amazing person you’ve ever created.
And you can’t wait to introduce them to your readers.
To that end, you’re looking for the best adjectives to describe personality traits — specifically the ones this character has.
You could also use some positive personality adjectives to humanize your story’s antagonist.
Because who doesn’t love a redemption arc?
But whatever your specific character development goals, we’ve created a list of 123 descriptive words for people your readers will want to know better.
Could your newest book benefit from a foreword?
You’ve seen them in other books, and you’ve thought, “How could I get someone famous to write a foreword for mine?”
Writing a foreword for a book is easy once you know what belongs in it.
And though you probably won’t be the one writing a foreword for your own book, you might one day write one for someone else’s.
It pays to think ahead.
Let’s start with what a foreword is — and what it can do for your book.
What is the purpose of a preface? And does your book even need one?
Not every book has a preface, after all.
And you’re more likely to see one in a nonfiction book than in a novel, as you’ll see in the preface examples further on.
But what goes in there, anyway?
What does it cover that you wouldn’t put in your book’s introduction?
And how do you write a preface that won’t sabotage your reader’s interest?