Writing tips – Darren Joy Dark Epic Fantasy Author

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Ideas are a Dime a Dozen

First things first: You should at least be excited by your idea. Next, give your book idea time and space to grow. Take notes, keep track, and add to it until it has reached a point where you just have to start writing.
Make certain to read a lot, especially in the genre you wish to write in. Immerse yourself in the stories, worlds, and genres you love.
Make sure you have a place to write down those amazing ideas. Whether that’s a notebook, a digital note-taking app, or scraps of paper stuffed in a drawer.
Ideas rarely come fully formed. They’re more like fragments of a greater whole that you start putting together.
Finally, keep writing. Ideas are a dime a dozen; it’s what you make of them that matters.

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First Drafts Stink

I remember I felt relieved when I first realised that first drafts are supposed to be terrible. Because mine was a nightmare. Don’t show your first draft to anyone; it’s way too early for that. Just keep writing it until you reach the end.
Now, some writers are pantsers who barely outline or don’t outline at all. Others are plotters who may outline it to death. If you don’t already know, you’ll need to figure out where along this spectrum you fall. Experiment until it feels right. You’ll know.
Write as often as you can and whether it’s twenty minutes a week or twenty hours, make it regular. Be honest with yourself. It’s easy to procrastinate.
Finally, it’s best to write the first draft right through before going back to edit. Not all writers do this and you’ll have to figure out your own process, but generally, it is considered a good idea.

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Take an Axe to it

When you're ready to rewrite your novel, you should consider a structural edit.
Obvious though it sounds, your novel should have a Beginning, a Middle, and an Ending.
The Beginning can be divided into the Status Quo, and the Inciting Incident. The Status Quo is your character on a normal day, before the exciting events in your novel take place. The Inciting Incident is what ends the status quo, turning your main character's life upside down.
The Middle is made up of minor goals. Your main character decides on a minor goal, encounters conflict, suffers a setback before deciding on a new goal. These goals should add up to your character's overall main goal by the end of the book.
Your story builds to a climax in the Ending. Your main character should then hit their lowest point, before they finally figure things out. Then after their main goal is achieved, you have falling action.

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Dialogue: The good, the Bad, and the Ugly

If you were to record your conversation with someone, you’ll find it’s full of interruptions, changes of topic, half-finished sentences, and filler words.
Good dialogue sounds like real speech but with the boring parts gone. Dialogue in novels should give the illusion of real speech, and therein lies the secret.
When using dialogue tags, it’s best practice to mostly use “he said” and “she said”. When you read, your mind automatically passes over these tags without noticing them. Avoid tags like, “He expounded” or “She espoused.”
Lastly, characters can lie, deflect, not answer, use facial expressions or gestures. Don't have your characters chatting about mundane things like the weather.
Also, don't forget internal dialogue. This can be just as interesting, especially if the internal dialogue conflicts with what the character says. It helps the reader get inside the character's head and helps them empathise better with the character.

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Building a World from Scratch

World building is important, especially for fantasy or science fiction. Don't try to build the entire world of your novel all in one go. Build it as you write, adding details when necessary. Keep track, making notes if you need to. You’ll want to remain consistent and not confuse the reader.
While much of the world building will likely come from your imagination, you can also borrow ideas from mythology, religion, or different time periods in history. Just make it your own.
The world you create should affect your characters. It can be subtle or blunt, but it shouldn't just be there as decoration.
Of course, make sure not to spend so much time creating your world that you neglect other elements of your story, such as writing it.

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High Stakes

For readers to be invested in your novel's story, there needs to be something important at stake for your main character. Often in a fantasy novel this might be a dark lord threatening the world. Therefore, the world itself is at stake. Of course, depending on the genre, the stakes don't have to be as dramatic as that. In a romance it might just be the main character’s heart at stake. But the stakes must be high for the character.
You should probably try to raise the stakes in your novel gradually but they should be getting higher all the time until the ultimate showdown where your main character must either achieve their main goal, which is usually the preferred option, or fail. You want to build the tension for your reader so they are turning the pages unable to tear their eyes away from your book as you ramp it up to an exciting conclusion.

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Lots and Lots of Conflict

Your story must have conflict. That doesn’t mean you have to always have epic battles with otherworldly armies and monsters, though it couldn’t hurt. It does mean that some sort of conflict needs to be present in your book. The type and level of conflict will vary depending on the genre you write in, but something must be happening, or else there is no story.

The three main types of conflict to consider, although there are arguably others, are:

1. Conflict between the characters – character faces off against their adversary or their adversarie's minions

2. Inner Conflict – character at war with something in their soul. Maybe because of something that happened in their past.

3. Environmental Conflict – this might be a dangerous hurricane, flooding, baking deserts, or vicious creatures.

While you don't necessarily need all three types, it is a good idea to include at least the first two. There are other types such as technological or society etc., but these three, I believe, are the most common.