Writing Books

Hi!  Today for school I have creative writing, and for my teacher/mom that basically translates into writing stories, or books.  I love writing as much as I love reading, but it is really hard to write a book that I think I would want to read if I hadn't written it, if that makes sense.  It's hard to make the story interesting, without making it so busy that there's no dialogue.  It's hard to make sure you don't leave out characters.  It is hard for me to include parents in my stories, because so far all my kids are running away from evil step-parents, or they are orphans trying to bring back a lost kingdom, or something of the sort.  Have any of you tried writing a book and thought it was harder than it looks?  Got any writing tips?  Here's one, test it out.  If it's a book for your age group, have one of your friends or family members in that age group read it.  Let them criticize, or praise it, and listen to what they say.  I think it would help.  (Maybe that was something you already do and my tip wasn't very helpful, sorry.)  Also, on a lot of authors websites, they have writing tips too.  I like to read those sometimes to see if I'm using any of them.  Alright, back to writing.  Bye!

P.S. I forgot to mention this website for middle school-teenagers.  It's called Miss Literati and you can sign up and write books and other people of the website can comment and stuff.  Anyone that goes on the website can read your books.  If you get enough "subscriptions" to your books, then you get featured on the homepage.  Check it out if you want, its a great place to write books and get a feel for what being an author might be like (I say might because I am not a published author, yet, and therefore do not know what it feels like to be an author.) ~laila
http://www.missliterati.com/ml/home