Shutterstock / Dragon Images©It’s easy to stick to your writing comfort zone.
We all tend to drift to the genres and settings that we’re familiar with. These will be the stories that have brought us success.
But sometimes it’s a good idea to try something different.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re successful at it or not.
It will have stretched your writing muscles and that can only be a good thing.
Baby steps
Choose one thing about your usual story writing that you’re going to change.
This could be the era the story is set in, the location or the ages of your main characters.
Inspiration from the past
Have a look on websites that tell you what happened on this day in history.
It may spark an idea because of an event. Perhaps a style of clothing will catch your eye. An invention?
Well, why not think about that driving your story.
Word counts
Word count comfort zone is a real thing.
Set yourself a story length that you would never normally try then make planning notes as to how you will fill the pages.
What back stories can you include, or take out? What can you say about the setting?
Main characters
If you always write from a female point of view, why not switch it around? Introduce another character into your story then work out their back story. This could make you change direction of where your story is going.
Read, then read some more
If you fancy trying something completely different, do your research.
Read historical stories, romantic stories, crime stories. Analyse how other authors put these stories together.
Don’t give up
Perhaps your new approach doesn’t work. So what? No-one has a 100% success rate and it’s important to remember that.
Tracey Steel Having worked on a number of magazines over the years, I have found my perfect place on the “Friend” as I’m obsessed with reading and never go anywhere without a book! I read all of our stories with a mug of tea close by and usually a bit of strong cheese too!
