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Creative Writing Guide

Greetings!
We want to inspire you guys to write your own stories about RuneScape! So to help you with this we've created some top tips for creative writing, which you can use when devising your own RuneScape plots, settings and characters! These tips come straight from the imaginative brains of our creative writing team, so check them out to get some pointers from the pros.


Tip #1 Make your characters relatable




If your characters are experiencing situations which are not normal, e.g. in a fantasy story, it is very important that you can still understand why the characters are reacting as they do. So, even if the characters are not behaving in a way which the reader would act, there is reasoning behind it so the reader can empathise with them.



Tip #2 Pacing




What is the goal of your story? Is it to tell a story about an event, or a series of events? The fewer things that are happening in the story the shorter and faster pace it needs to be. For example if your story is about one battle and it is several thousand words long it is hard to keep the readers interest. So it either needs to be shorter in length to reflect this, or more events need to be added to the story.



Tip #3 Characters must have motives




A simple way of determining these is to ask questions of your characters. Who are they? Where do they come from? What do they want? If the reader can answer these questions clearly, then the character’s motives regarding what is unfolding around them will be much clearer. Conflicting character motives is also a great way of encouraging people to read on and find out what happens next.



Tip #4 Be in the thick of it




If you are writing an action packed story, it is much more enthralling experience if the reader feels they are living the action. Describing the plot from hovering narrative or first person can both be used to achieve this, but both styles must describe the personal details and experiences of individual characters rather than the overall storyline broadly. For example writing a character’s individual experience of an epic battle is far more engaging than telling the collective story of the battle as a whole.



Tip #5 Dialogue is crucial




Writing dialogue can be tricky. A good check when reading back what the character is saying is: ‘Could that line be said by another character instead?’. If your characters’ dialogue could easily have been said by another character as well, it means that what that character is saying isn’t unique to them. Charismatic speech which really embodies the personality of the character is far better than generic speech which could have been said by anyone.



Tip #6 Live the environments




When describing a scene, adjectives and metaphors are great up to a point. But your reader will get a much better sense of scene if you make them feel as if they are there. Mentioning smells, tastes and sounds as well as sights will add another layer to your setting. Describing the senses is a good way of making the reader fully immersed as they can relate to things which they have sensed before. This will make your story all the more enjoyable and memorable.