The 5 "Don't"s of Publishing on the Web

Let's face it, with the accessibiliy of the web aspiring authors everywhere have started publishing their stuff on the web in order to garner attention and positive criticism. Unfortunately, there is a dark side to something which lacks any quality control whatsoever. Upon reading some of this stuff, I've compiled a list of 5 "don't"s that I think it would be a good idea to follow fairly religiously.

1) Don't use txt speech. I know phones don't have keyboards and I know it's completely acceptable for you to send a barely coherent message to your mates about the party tonight. However, you have to accept that dropping all the vowels and a fair amount of the consonants drops reading flow to a crawl.

2) Don't forget to use the spell checker. Actually, if you're fairly confident in your spelling abilities, it's fine to forget the spell checker. This "don't" is aimed at those of you who approach spelling as a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. At least txt speech is fairly universal, but when people have to take wild guesses at what the word might be, it's time to click the little button that that says "ABC" with a tick below it.

3) Don't play nice with your characters. Have you ever been told that doing something you don't want to "build character"? Whether it did or not is a moot point, in your story building character is one of the most important thing you can do. Throw stuff at your characters, force them to fight dragons, escape demons and generally climb their personal Everest. Challenges being overcome is interesting, Bob the Barbarian effortlessly slaying a dozen orcs isn't (some exceptions do apply, but there's a reason why they're called exceptions).

4) Don't make up the plot as you go along. Now, some authors are quite capable of making a story up as they go along, resulting in a thoroughly enjoyable book. But those authors are rare and probably not the best role models. If you don't work it out before you start off then you end up with characters meandering all over the place with no rhyme or reason and the pacing is usually off. Finish that off with loose ends not being tied off and you'll wish you'd listened to this advice.

5) Don't expect writing to be easy. Writing isn't easy, constant writing will result in it becoming less effort over time, but never effortless. If you've ever read an Author's note at the start of a book, you'll know authors take months to write books and that's putting in a good solid day's work. You're going to struggle every now and then and stumble into the infamous writer's block. Don't let that discourage you, if you persevere, one day you'll be creating works of fiction that will transport readers from this world into a world of your making, one that you created with hard work and a certain amount of love.