Everyone eventually has enough—Believable tension

Creating tension between your characters is great. Everyone can't get along all the time, and showing tension helps foreshadow future conflict and peak interest. Tension is important.

Tension, like everything else in your story, however, has to be believable.

If you go too far, readers won't believe that your characters are just putting up with the tension. They won't believe that these humans are living together and aren't snapping, slapping, or finding a way to separate each other.

Too much tension leads to people separating, not adding tension.

Absolutely add tension to you story, but also know where that tension should stop.

Do you want to write?

Making time for writing can be hard.

There can be a lot of distractions and responsibilities pulling you in all directions. There can be voices coming from all parts of your life. There can be natural disasters and health problems and countless other unexpected events.

But at the end of the day, you have to decide if you want to write.

If you want to write, make the time.

Take the bus so you can write then. Wake up earlier to be able to get some writing in before everyone else wakes up. Forgo seeing that latest movie so you can have those extra two hours to write.

Finding time can be hard. But, at some point, you have to decide if you're going to do it or if you're going to let someone else write all those great ideas of yours.

Only you can decide to get typing.

Moving on from NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is no longer. Yet November will come and there's still writing to do.

A quick Google search will show you that there are plenty of alternatives out there. Some that require commitments and some that don't.

So, if you're someone who used NaNoWriMo to kick you in the butt every year, don't think your writing future is ruined. There are plenty of options out there. Or, you can make up your own adventure based on what you want to see as a writing challenge month.

NaNoWriMo may be over, but your writing isn't. Get out there and make this your best writing month yet.

Action logic

When you're bringing a reader into your world, you have to make sure that they can follow along with what you're creating for them. To do this, you have to make sure your characters' actions are complete and logical.

If Casey is in the kitchen on the phone, you can't suddenly have her in the living room throwing a book at her little sister for eavesdropping. She has to put the phone down. She has to walk from the kitchen to the living room. She has to grab a book. She has to do all these things.

While you don't have to describe every step Casey takes, you have to describe enough for your reader to follow and for the actions to be realistic. There has to be enough time for Casey to get from one room to another. You also have to explain how her little sister doesn't realize Casey's doing this, even though all little sister is doing is spying on Casey.

You may have your scene's action clear in your mind to get everyone where they need to be, but make sure that you give enough description for your readers to follow along. Describe away. Cutting anything extra later on should be easy enough.

Sorry. There is no secret.

You might be scouring writing blogs to find that secret. You are looking for that thing that will get you to the end of the piece you're writing and make sure that it's publishable.

Let me save you time: there is no secret.

There's a lot of good advice and there are a lot tips to improve individual parts of your writing, but there's no secret to make you a successful author.

No genie's lamp or shooting star is out there for you.

So, read all the advice. Procrastinate as appropriate. Go down the rabbit hole headfirst.

Then, get to work. That's the only secret to finishing your book.

Something better happen

People have a lot of things that they could be doing. There are a lot of distractions out there in the world. Committing to reading a full book is a lot to ask of them.

So, if you want them to feel satisfied when they get to the end of your story, you better make something happen. You need to create an ending that is satisfying. Most of all, you need an ending that includes something happening.

Don't let luck or chance create your ending. Don't let your ending happen off screen. Don't let nothing happen and your protagonist just be satisfied with the situation they've been in all along.

Make something happen in your writing. It's the best way to make your readers look for your next story.

Bad luck is believable

Coincidences happen, but often, when they happen in stories, it can feel like the writer is forcing something.

Mostly.

One big exception, is bad coincidences.

It feels like bad things happen all the time. If they didn't, wouldn’t we all be rich and healthy and completely happy?

So, it's only logical that bad things will happen to our characters.

We don't blink when someone in a story gets sick. It's almost normal that money debt grows because of a death or a bad farming season. At any point, someone can lose their job and need a change of life.

We all worry about bad luck and we don't find it unbelievable when it happens. So, don't hesitate to add a little of it in your character's life to keep your story moving forward.