Category: Blog

By: Aleksandra Yefremova

Writing is not easy, even for professional writers. Describing events and expressing dialogue can be a challenge for anybody. A common problem most people experience while writing is overthinking. Luckily, this obstacle can be easily overcome with a few simple-to-follow tips.

To start, a good first tip in writing proficiently is to write daily. It is important to remind yourself to write every day. It does not have to be anything specific or even interesting, it can be anything in general. Writing does not mean creating an essay consisting of over one thousand words, it can be something simple and painless such as a short poem or a lyric. Write what comes to mind.

In addition, a second tip is to not overthink your sentence phrasing, sentence structure, and terminology until you revise your writing. Create a simple straight to the point sentence that can be easily understood. Furthermore, it is also important to let words flow naturally onto the page and not stress yourself over constructing the ideal or perfect line. This is important because letting your own words fly on to the page is the base of your writing. Once you have the base it becomes so much easier to revise and reconstruct what you have written.

Equally as important, a third step is to re-read what you have written out loud. It is a good idea to re-read your writing and remove some of the boring or dull phrases and spice them up with a more impressive synonym. This might sound strange. However, it is efficient in composing an acceptable or even an exceptional story, essay, or poem. To add, another good way to expand your wring is to let other people read what you have written and ask them for criticism. Strangely enough, criticism is a good way to view what strengths your writing holds and what weaknesses.

Given these points, writing is difficult and stressing. Yet with these few simple tips writing can be fun, easy, and most importantly effortless in constructing.

by: Mikala Dawson

Many writers and artists struggle with confidence. It is intimidating to publish your work for others to see. The internet and social media allow anyone and everyone to see what you’ve created and either “fan girl” over it or subject it to the harshest of criticisms. The aim of this editorial is to share some confidence boosting tips I’ve gathered over the years and hopefully encourage you to submit to our magazine.

Developing the confidence to publish or submit your writing can be a challenge, but if you’re willing to put in the time you will see results. There are two BIG ways you can boost your confidence in your writing. The first solution is edit and re-write. The more time you spend writing something, the more ideas you develop on the subject. Always go back and re-read what you’ve written and look for improvement in your writing. The second solution, get a second opinion. I know sharing your work with others may seem daunting, but a fresh pair of eyes will see mistakes your eyes have been missing. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, a popular alternative is copying and pasting your writing into Google Translate and pressing play. Google will read out your writing and you can hear the more obvious mistakes you made out loud. One of the best ways I’ve found to help my confidence is editing and re-writing over and over again. I’m so insecure with my writing I often don’t want to share it with anyone for a second opinion.

Building confidence in your art work can be a bit tricky. It’s important to understand that no one will understand your art the same way you do. Criticism form others should be taken with a grain of salt. A solution to dwindling confidence in your art is to always practice new art styles. Getting out of your comfort zone and working with new styles and materials helps you build as an artist. This expansion in your abilities will naturally lead to more confidence in your art. I feel the best solution is remembering to always compare yourself to yourself. This way, you always win.

Confidence is important in everyday life. Without it, you cannot hope to achieve your goals. Magazines like Elektraphrog rely on submissions from writers and artist to create a catalog of new ideas that help inspire others. Without you there isn’t a magazine. So, take a chance and submit something, you may surprise yourself.

by: Alysa Curley

Have you ever had a wonderful idea for a character, the story, or a message that you wanted to share? This then is for you, as it helps for you, the writer to have a some clear plot goals while developing your work.

To begin with, you the writers, should have the idea that the Goals in the story define the plot, meaning that what your characters are striving for lead the story into the plot. After all plotting is a verb, and in general it is showing the cause and effect that your characters choices are or aren’t leading to.

First, figure out the character traits that your protagonist possesses at the beginning of the story.

Let’s say that your protagonist is a boy. In fact a young man who has just started college would work fine. What kind of characteristics would he have? Is he smart, naive, athletic, curious? For this example let’s say that the young man named Josh is:

• Attending college on an academic scholarship
• Looking for a part time job

The next step is for you, the writer to determine what kind of genre this story is going to be. Do you like more Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, or perhaps Crime genres? The genre you choose will then determine the overall goal of the protagonist.

For science-fiction, maybe the job he interviews for, involves highly advanced technology. For thriller maybe he sees a a mysterious figure around the campus. I am sure you understand the idea.
For my example Josh is staring in a story about crime.

Now that you know what kind of character you have and the genre of story that you are writing the last step in developing your plot is to determine 2 things.

What is your character’s long term goal?
While your character is in the story are they looking to go against a physical antagonist. Such as the general bad guy/organization that is preventing the goal from being meet or completed. Or is the characters main struggle internal in nature. A story in which they are trying to overcome a certain fear or moral dilemma. Good stories tend to have their antagonist going through both as it depends plot and character development.

Focus on your character transitions.
With this I mean that in your plot the last thing you have to consider is how the challenges in the story are going to change your character or inlighten your character to the fact that they will not change. Meaning that it leads to a realization, for your character and audience, of how going against the antagonist changed the characters ideas or morals or rather how no matter hard they try cannot change no matter how hard they try.

After you have all of this figured out, you have all the plot goals for the story you are writing. Express your dreams, aspirations, and knowledge to your readers in a way that makes that makes you both happy and proud for what you have done.