The Writer’s Relief website has some worthwhile points about making the best use of one’s writing skills.  I have extracted some of the best points be]ow.

Sentence Length: Today’s reader tends to favour short sentence lengths—clear and direct writing rather than flowery, convoluted prose. It’s a busy world full of information, and simple, easy-to-read sentences with powerful verbs are appealing. Sentence length can have an enormous effect on your readers.  An example of effectively using short, powerful sentences to create an impact can be found in The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan: That night I sat on Tyan-yu’s bed and waited for him to touch me. But he didn’t. I was relieved.  But this paragraph, from A Farewell to Arms, shows Ernest Hemingway’s skill with more complex construction, giving the reader a sense of the character’s languor:  They left me alone and I lay in bed and read the papers awhile, the news from the front, and the list of dead officers with their decorations and then reached down and brought up the bottle of Cinzano and held it straight up on my stomach, the cool glass against my stomach, and took little drinks making rings on my stomach from holding the bottle there between drinks, and watched it get dark outside over the roofs of the town.

More Powerful Verbs: He ran through the crowd. I didn’t like my coffee.  These phrases might come off as emphatic when they’re uttered in conversation. But when text is our medium, the primary way we can emphasise the tone of the words is by making stronger word choices, like this: He sprinted through the crowd.  I hated my coffee.  Sometimes amping up a verb requires restructuring a sentence: He darted among the pedestrians. My coffee nauseated me.  And other times the verb choice will need to reflect a character’s dialect or personality:  He bullied his way through the crowd. I’m not relishing my coffee.  One other “problem area” to work on when you’re ramping up your verb choices is the dreaded adverb. Overusing adverbs is the equivalent of trying to do crunches by pushing yourself up with your hands—it’s a way of “helping” the main action, but it makes the results less dramatic. Sometimes adverbs are absolutely necessary, but when you can get rid of them, you should.

Unusual Words: Examples of creative word usage abound in The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. This novel is first set in Paris on the brink of World War II. The young Jewish protagonist, Andras, learns he must quit school and return to his home in Hungary. He’s bummed out. When he gets to Hungary, he thinks, “Budapest was cobwebbed with memories…”  Most of us think of the word cobweb as a noun. “Look at those cobwebs! That corner is full of cobwebs!” However, Merriam-Webster notes a lesser-known usage of cobwebbed as an adjective. Few of us would say, “Look at that cobwebbed corner.” It feels awkward.  But in Ms. Orringer’s hands, cobwebbed is a revelation. Could she have written that Budapest was full of memories? Of course.  But cobwebbed is so much more powerful and evocative of Andras’s frame of mind. First, cobwebbed is more visual than full. Second, it’s more specific. Third, it evokes age—something forgotten, despairing, and maybe a touch repulsive. It also provides some eerie foreshadowing for what could, and does, happen to this young man during the Holocaust.

Setting: The settings or locales of books, stories, and poems can be just as important as characters, plot, and prose style in making a creative work bloom.  Does your story or book have a setting that comes to life? That is a character in and of itself?   In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s renowned 1884 novel, the Mississippi River and its environs come alive under the magical pen of Twain—a pre-Civil War pilot on that waterway. Twain contrasts the beauty of the Mississippi’s southern portion with the racism, scamming, and other not-so-beautiful things that happen in and near there. But the river is also a place to have fun—and for Jim to possibly find freedom from slavery.

Point of View:  Point of view can be defined as the narrative perspective from which a story or novel is told. Many editors and publishers will tell you that a novel written from the first person point of view (I, we) is often a sign of an inexperienced writer, and—toss!—into the trash it goes. Check your local bookstore and take note of how many best-sellers are written in first person. They exist, but novels are far more often written in third-person narrative, and for good reason. In first person, the character is also the narrator, either playing a central (active) role or a peripheral (sideline) part. As the first-person narrator, you have but one point of view to offer, and this can be limiting. There’s simply less opportunity to bring depth to the story. On the other hand, a first-person narrative creates an undeniable intimacy with the reader.  The second person point of view is a difficult and uncommon style to pull off successfully. Imagine an entire novel where the character, narrator, or even the reader is referred to as “you.”  Often considered an experimental form, this type of narrative would be nearly impossible to sustain through a full-length novel and would be more successful in a short piece.  Storytelling from a third person point of view (he, she) offers a clear distinction between the author and the characters, allowing the author complete freedom to travel through the story and its characters. The narrator is not a character and can therefore comment on every aspect if so desired.  There are several alternatives to the third person point of view: the omniscient point of view, where the narrator is all-knowing; the limited point of view, where the narrator knows only one character; and the objective point of view, where the narrator offers no opinions or value judgements.  Once you’ve chosen your point of view, consistency is a matter of importance. Switching POVs can cause confusion for the reader and interrupt the flow of the story. If you do choose to use multiple POVs, make it obvious when a new character takes over the storytelling.