Gregory Gottfried - Tips For Writing Fiction

As an aspiring novelist and screenwriter, Gregory Gottfried understands how to craft a fictional story that will compel people to keep reading through to the very end. He has compiled the following list of tips that should help people who are taking their first steps into the world of fiction.


Keep It Believable

When we talk about believability in fiction, that doesn’t necessarily mean making sure that what you write could occur in the real world. Instead, it means taking into account the various “rules” of the universe you have created to ensure that everything that happens is believable based on those “rules.” Failure to do this could result in you using cheap tricks to resolve plot points, which the reader will spot in an instant.

Create Your Universe

Before you start writing a fiction novel you need to have a good understanding of the universe you are creating and the people that inhabit it. Create a backstory that may not be used in the writing itself but will give you a better idea of how everything you write fits into the universe that you have created. This will make it much easier for you to get into the flow and make sure that everything in your writing makes sense in the context that it is written.

Read

Gregory Gottfried notes that one of the best things that a writer can do in order to improve is to read the works of other writers. This will help you to understand what readers of the genre you’re writing in expect from a book, while also offering a wellspring of inspiration and ideas that you can bring to your own work.

Gregory Gottfried - Reasons to Write An Entire First Draft Before Editing

Gregory Gottfried has found that many writers struggle to actually complete any of their work, instead getting so bogged down in redrafting that they never manage to take a story through to its conclusion. There are a number of reasons why you should avoid doing this if you want to find success as a writer, including all of the following.

You Actually Finish

Writing can be a slog but it starts to feel pointless if you never manage to finish what you started. Instead of making constant edits, get everything that you can down on paper and conclude the story. It will almost never be great at the first attempt, but you get the sense of achievement that completion brings and can then work on touching up weak areas to make the story even better.

The End Helps You Understand the Build Up

Your entire story will be building up to a conclusion that you probably already have in your head, but you may not fully grasp how it all fits together until you actually get that conclusion written down. You can then go back and examine how everything ties into that ending, allowing you to tighten up loose plot threads and make sure the story continues to build to that climax in the way you wanted.

Less Difficult to Edit

What do you think is more difficult between making cuts to a manuscript that you have redrafted time and time again or making cuts to a rough first draft? Gregory Gottfried points out that the more you edit before you get the story finished, the more invested you are in the end product, which makes it all the more difficult to see the faults that it possesses.

Gregory Gottfried - Keeping Customers Happy

Gregory Gottfried has worked in a number of roles that required him to interact with the public and he has found that there are certain things you can do in customer service to make sure that people are happy. Here are just a few of them that should be helpful to anybody who works in a role where they deal with other people on a daily basis.

Smile

If you approach a customer with a scowl on your face, they are instantly going to be wary of you. Instead, maintain a positive attitude at all times and try to do everything that you can to help them. You will find that people are much more receptive to you if you make it clear that you’re here to help, plus you can diffuse tenser situations more easily.
 
Be Honest

Honesty is always the best policy when it comes to customer service as trust is a huge part of building relationships with people to the point where they use your service more often. As such, if you don’t know the answer to a question you should never try to bluff your way out of it. Instead, tell the customer that you are unsure but you will do everything that you can to find out for them.

Listen

Gregory Gottfried has found that customers do not want to be told what you have to offer them until they have told you what they are looking for. As such, you should always take the time to listen to a customer so that you are abler to assist them, rather than going in for a hard sell on a product before you have even established whether or not it’s something they want.

Gregory Gottfried - Tips For Redrafting

When writing a screenplay or novel, one of the most important stages actually comes after you have written what you wanted to down on paper. Gregory Gottfried points out that the redrafting stages is vital if you want to make sure your writing is of a high quality and has offered the following tips for people who are struggling.

Gregory Gottfried

Wait Until You Finish

One of the biggest mistakes that new authors make is to start redrafting while they are still writing their piece. This can lead to you getting bogged down, breaking the flow of your writing and preventing you from finishing the story that you started. Instead, you should get your story finished before you start redrafting, allowing you to dedicate time to the process instead of flitting back and forth between redrafting and writing.

Making Corrections

All writers make mistakes. If they didn’t, there would be no need for proofreaders and editors in the world. Still, your redrafting period should allow you to catch as many of your mistakes as you possibly can, which ensures that your work looks much more professional when you eventually present it to a publisher.

Catching Broken Narrative Threads

Gregory Gottfried has found that it is all too easy to create small narrative threads that are intended to be a part of your larger story but get lost in the shuffle when you are focused on writing. A god redraft will allow you to identify plot elements that you may not have wrapped up in the manner that you wanted, making your story tighter and more cohesive in the process.

Gregory Gottfried - On Drawing Inspiration from Real Life

While many writers sit around and wait for inspiration to strike them at their writing desks, Gregory Gottfried works for his inspiration. One of his main sources for inspiration for his debut novel or his series of screenplays he has been working on since high school is his everyday life in upstate New York. He works at the front desk of the Sheraton Tarrytown Hotel and he has worked at many different customer service positions throughout the area. Gottfried has many ways of using his everyday experiences in his writing that he swears by.



Writers like Gregory Gottfried, who know they will be using much of their everyday experiences in their writing, make a point to write down bits of interesting dialogue or thoughts they may have so they can remember the moment and use in their writing. This takes discipline work. The notion that you will remember something for later without writing it down is a myth—one that Gregory Gottfried figured out much earlier in his career. He brings a small notebook everywhere he goes so he can jot down an idea or a scene he can use later in his writing. Gottfried has drawn many critical moments and aspects of characters from his daily notes that he keeps every day when he goes to work at the hotel. Many writers keep running daily journals of everything they do, hear, or say so they have plenty of material to draw from.

Gregory Gottfried hopes to draw as many readers into his novel and other writing as possible, crafting believable characters that drive the plot of the story.

Gregory Gottfried - Finding the Best Characters for a Story

Every story, long or short, needs compelling characters that push the plot along and create the motions for the climax. Gregory Gottfried draws heavily from his everyday life and work as a customer service representative in upstate New York. Gottfried is at work on his debut novel, which he plans on publishing sometime in 2017. Gottfried is constantly reading and re-writing screenplays and drafts for his novel, which also helps to inspire him and push his plot forward.

 
Creating compelling characters takes the patience to let the characters themselves breathe and inhabit a world that the author creates for them. Gregory Gottfried started with a few characters he based on real people he has interacted with in his life, put them in impossible situations, and wrote down what happened next, similar in the way that Stephen King plots his compelling novels of the supernatural. Gregory Gottfried wants his characters to be everyday heroes and villains, people capable of immense good or evil depending on the situations they are in and the choices they make to achieve their goals. Gottfried writes to push his characters as far as they will go to see what they will do to reach their destinations and their goals. What cost will his characters pay for their chance at success? Read Gottfried’s debut novel to find out.

Gregory Gottfried is nearly finished with the manuscript for the novel and he plans on finding representation for his work soon in 2016, or he may look into self-publishing as well.

Gregory Gottfried - The Publishing Process

Gregory Gottfried is an aspiring novelist who is hard at work on his first work of fiction. He plans on releasing the novel by 2017. Gottfried isn’t afraid of going the traditional or the new way to publish his novel. The traditional way is usually longer and more difficult, but usually brings more long-term success. Authors are self-publishing their work now at a much higher rate than ever before as well. While this is an easier way to get their work into the hands of readers, self-publishing too has its own pitfalls. 

 

Gregory Gottfried hopes to get his novel published the traditional way, but he would also love to self-publish his work as well, depending on his options. For a novel to travel from the author’s mind to the bookshelves in the traditional manner, the author must first sell his or her novel to an agent. Gregory Gottfried, in the process of drafting his first novel now, has already sent samples of the work to prospective agents in NewYork City, hoping that what he has written so far will inspire one of these agents to represent him to a publishing firm there. Once an agent accepts a writer as a client, he or she will start selling it to publishers. The publisher will decide if they can sell the author’s work and offer the author a contract, from there the marketing effort begins. 

Gregory Gottfried has worked hard on his first novel and plans on publishing it himself if can’t find an agent.