Another issue that a lot of drafts face (from newbie and seasoned writers) is run-on sentences.

Grammarly has a good article explaining what these are.
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/run-on-sentence-basics/

Grammarly's examples below:

[Incorrect]Lila enjoyed the bouquet of tulips John gave her on prom night however she prefers roses.
[Correct]Lila enjoyed the bouquet of tulips John gave her on prom night; however, she prefers roses.

Basically a run on sentence is stringing two separate conditions together and not placing a punctuation in between to separate the two kind of what I'm doing with this sentence that I'm writing right now.

It may seem obvious on screen, but it's quite a common thing to do when drafting from thought for the first time. Especially when writing is still a new skill. It may not be easy to determine punctuation rules between clauses. So it's handy to have a tool like Grammarly to flag the places where pauses are likely needed. This will slowly train the eye for the splits.

Also, with Grammarly's correct example. It would be better to substitute the semi colon ( ; ) with a full stop (.) instead, making them separate sentences and statements.

Veronica8 How do I know I'm mixing my tenses around?

It's a common question that pops up a lot for writers. And most recently here

Sometimes, it's not easy to see. The common flags to look for are:

• Does your verb/adverb end in '-ed'? Then it's past.
• Does it end in '-ing' or '-s'? Then the tense is present.

An example of a mixed/shifted tense scene:

John is walking to the pub. He walked into the bar and is fighting with people. Bruce is yelling to stop the fight. He approached John and stopped him.

Can you spot what verbs are present and past? Yep. The verbs in red are present. Those in blue are past.

Of course, the English language is quirky where rules can be flexed to suit the context. But, seeing the most common flags will help improve on avoiding mix-tenses within a story. The rule for tense usage is absolute.

My advice to newbies. Learn to write your story in third person limited - past tense. This is the easiest to grasp for avoiding the pitfalls of mixing tenses.

Evernote has a page of cool templates to check out. Link below.
https://evernote.com/blog/12-creative-writing-templates/

I especially like their premise template. I use something similar when I want to pitch a logline. Sometimes you need to describe your book in 100 words or fewer. So having a premise overview helps with this.

I recommend practising on writing a premise. It'll help with book summary writing. You can even use premise templates to help with reviewing a book.

Writer's Edit list of writing tools recommendations.
https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/5-must-have-tools-to-get-you-through-the-editing-process/

To be honest, I have none of the ones listed in the article :laughing: I rely on an outdated Celtx to organize my manuscripts.

Another free tool, that wasn't mentioned, which might be useful for story design organization is yWriter5 by Spacejock Software It's a homebrew type of freeware that's not too shabby.

Screenshots of this app

How Do I Write Less Abled Characters Into My Stories?

Example: You have a cool character like Sekiro where they have an awesome prosthetic as their skill-card. Or the MC is wheelchair bound like X-Men's Xavier.

These posts provide some tips:
https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Disabled-Character
https://www.writermag.com/improve-your-writing/writing-for-young-readers/disabled-protagonists-childrens-ya-literature/
https://smanewstoday.com/2019/05/28/disabled-characters-fiction/

There are lots of books being written for the less abled.
https://bookriot.com/2019/10/29/ya-books-with-disabled-characters/
https://diversebooks.org/7-mg-and-ya-novelists-with-disabled-characters-share-what-inspired-their-stories/

My Tip
My experience, I felt it was best to write on the awesomeness and purpose to the storyline. Not the discrimination unless the story I was writing was tackling this in a healthy way.

I wrote a main character (cough, Famine) who becomes permanently deaf due to an accident. In the same story series, one of the Knight-captains is mute and only speaks in sign language. So their story has a lot of sign language written into it (described as actions).

My Sunflower story has two veterans with ailments. One is blind and the other has lost a foot. I focused on their facts and purpose more than their lack.

There are many ways to tackle bodily lacks in stories. But whatever method is applied, it needs to be story centric. Is my view.

Adding this one for those who're interested in some pitching to publishers or wanting to know more about prepping stories for books. The author is from down under. The advice could be helpful.

https://www.asauthors.org/products/books/a-decent-proposal-paperback