Do YOU have a question about writing? Email me: keir AT keirgraff DOT com
What do you do to become a better author?
How do I create realistic characters?
How do you make characters’ backstories apparent, but still fun to read?
How do you create AWESOME settings?
Do you do a rough draft when you’re writing a book?
What do you do to become a better author? —Kiki C.
Even though I have published many books and am a full-time, professional author, I still work hard every day to get better! There are many things I do that you can do, too.
First, read every day. Read books that are similar to the books and stories you want to write, and read books that are different, too, because you never know what will inspire you or teach you something new. If a book blows you away, read it again! While you read, think about what makes the story work. What is the main problem in the story? What are the obstacles to solving that problem? How does the author plant clues about what will happen next? Does the story end up where you expected or somewhere else?
Second, share your work and listen to your readers. I’m fortunate to have friends who are published authors, but your friends and family can help you with your work, too. After all, they’re readers, and they know what they like! Remind them to be nice but ask them to be honest and to tell you specifically what they like and what they think can be improved. Don’t defend your work: just listen. Make the changes you think will improve your story. You don’t have to agree with everything—after all, it’s YOUR writing!
Third, read books about writing. Books you might find helpful include My Weird Writing Tips, Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook, and Writing Magic.
How do I create realistic characters? —Amelia B.
Characters should feel real to the reader, but if they’re too real (that is, an ordinary person who doesn’t go around having adventures) they might not be interesting enough. I focus more on making them relatable than realistic—a reader who can relate to a character will follow that character through a full book, even if it is a blue-colored alien with long antennae and giant wings.
You can make your characters relatable by ensuring that all of them WANT something. We all want something, right? Even it’s it’s only a grilled-cheese sandwich, that desire will make us take action until we get what we want. If you’re writing a novel, your protagonist should want something that’s big and hard to get, so there will be lots of obstacles for them to overcome.
But even minor characters should want something, too. Your protagonist’s best friend might simply want more credit for helping to solve the problem, for example, and her mom might want her to give up her quest and play it safe. (Or maybe the protagonist’s mom could want her to do something big and dangerous she’s not ready for!)
Another simple way to make characters relatable is to show them doing something ordinary we can all have experienced, such as eating, shopping, or accidentally doing something dumb and feeling embarrassed about it.
How do you make characters’ backstories apparent, but still fun to read? —Amelia B.
Have you ever salted popcorn? (I LOVE popcorn.) If you don’t use enough salt, the popcorn is bland and flavorless, but if you use too much, it’s hard to finish. Think of character histories like salt—a little bit goes a long way. When writing fiction, you can put the most important thing about your protagonist right at the beginning (she’s an orphan, for example, or has a superpower) and then withhold the REASON for that fact until later in the story—creating a reason for your readers to keep turning pages. If your character’s history is complicated and important, you can tell it in flashbacks, making those scenes funny and entertaining by themselves.
But remember, you don’t need too much backstory. Readers will happily take a few facts and fill in the rest of the picture themselves.
How do you create AWESOME settings that make the story that much better and a huge part of the story like in The Phantom Tower, The Matchstick Castle, and The Tiny Mansion? —Amelia B.
Thank you for the compliment! I’m fascinated by unusually dwellings, and when I’m writing my books, I sometimes think of my characters’ homes as characters in their own right.
In The Matchstick Castle, almost all of the adventures play out in and around the Matchstick Castle itself, and its peculiar design influences events. Brunhild Tower in The Phantom Tower was inspired by the building I had just moved into—so I just got lucky there! And in The Tiny Mansion, the tiny house at the heart of the story is so small that it pushes Dagmar outside into new adventures. In these three books, I started with the settings, then chose the characters who lived in them, and thought about how the settings created problems for the characters to solve.
Your setting should always matter to your characters: a girl shares a room with three sisters will have a very different story than an only child who lives in a mansion!
Do you do a rough draft when you’re writing a book? —Students of Waterford School (Sandy, UT)
Writing always starts with a rough draft!
First, I construct a simple outline so I know where the story is going. It’s very important to know how my book will end, so I can build toward that ending in a natural way—a good ending comes as a surprise but still makes perfect sense.
Then I write the first draft, AKA the rough draft. When you write your rough draft, have fun and don’t criticize yourself—be as creative as possible! The SECOND draft is where you remove any ideas that don’t work. (Maybe they’re unrealistic, or too realistic, or don’t seem true to the characters.)
Drafts three, four, five, and six are all about making the story faster, funnier, and flawless!
I made a book, too, and I want to get it published. Can you tell me the steps to get my book published? —Andre B.
Congratulations on finishing your book—that’s exciting! First, think about who you hope will read your book. Your friends and family? Some people in your town? People interested in the topic of your book? Everyone in the whole wide world? The more people you want to have read your book, the harder your task will be.
I recommend young authors start the same way I did, by making a single copy of your book to share. You can write the story, draw the pictures, sew or staple the pages together, and then paste the pages into cardboard covers. In very little time, you’ll have a real book you can share.
If you want to make multiple electronic or printed copies, ask your parents to help you research a self-publishing service such as Rakuten Kobo, Smashwords, or the many others listed here. This is harder and takes more time—and the number of people who buy your book will depend on how hard you work to promote it.
Or you can try to traditionally publish your books, as I do. The basic steps are these: write the best book you possibly can and then find a literary agent to send your book to publishers. If a publisher likes your book, they will pay you for it, help improve it, print the books, and then offer them for sale. Although a few kids with remarkable stories have had their work professionally published, most publishers prefer to work with adult authors.
My advice? TAKE YOUR TIME I had a lot of fun making my own books when I was in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade—and I didn’t publish professionally until I was an adult over thirty years old. The more you write for fun now, the better your books will be when you professionally publish them later.