Struggling to get that novel out? I’ve been there. Actually, I feel like I’ve more than been there – I feel like I’ve been there and beyond!
But experience is a great teacher, and in this blog I’ll share with you the most valuable writing tips I’ve learned over the years. These tips could save you lots of time, work and frustration.
I mention fiction writing a lot in this blog, but the tips outlined here can be just as readily applied to writing non-fiction too.
Learn writing tips to save time
Firstly, about my own writing journey: I finished a novella, my first creative project, and in the process, I committed every single writing crime and mistake you could think of and more, but I think the biggest mistake of the lot has been wastage of time.
Time is a very precious thing you see – you can never get it back, which is why it’s so important to learn to use it wisely, and why, through the years, I’ve learnt strategies to get a novel done faster.
Not only is writing in itself hard, taking on a massive project like a novel often takes several months or even years of time, hard work and sacrifice, with no guarantee whatsoever of a reward when you reach the end of that creative tunnel.
But the other side of the coin is, if you manage to reach the end of the tunnel and publish your work, it’s very exciting. It’s a bucket list item ticked off.
It’s a dream realised. And isn’t that what life should be all about? Experiencing things? Following what your heart wants you to do and achieving your goals? Getting something done?
Finishing your story on its own is a great achievement – you might even find you’ve caught the writing bug and want to keep on doing it!
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into it the valuable writing stuff I’ve learned over the years.
Don’t see any piece of writing advice you read or hear of as absolute rules to follow
See writing advice as techniques, tools or suggestions that you can either choose to follow if it’s working for you, or to discard if it’s not. Everyone’s different and works in a different way, so tailor things to suit you.
When I first started writing, I didn’t want to follow any advice about writing a novel. I equated advice as rules, and I didn’t like the idea of that or being told what to do, so I just decided to do things my own way and discover for myself how to write a novel.
So I struggled along as a new and inexperienced writer, not listening to any advice, having poor time discipline, constant writer’s block, and wasting years and years of valuable time with mistake after mistake. Never again!
I think I made it very, very difficult for myself. There is so much information and help out there with writing, and we must take advantage of it!
On the other hand, writing is an individual thing and what works for one person may not work for another, so use your discernment.,
You don’t have to agree with every piece of advice you read, just take on what feels right for you.
A book should serve as an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us.
Franz Kafka
Read a lot and write a lot
Read widely, preferably in your chosen genre, but read other stuff too.
One of the best ways to be a better writer is to be a regular reader. Before my novella I read mostly non-fiction, but when I started writing I started reading fantasy fiction (as a sort of training ground for my novella) and I’m so glad I did, as a whole new world opened up to me.
There are so many fantastic fiction books out there waiting to be enjoyed and experienced, and it can only improve your writing.
If you want to delve more into how reading benefits you as a writer, you can check out my article, why writers should be regular readers.
The only way to get better at anything is to practice it regularly, and the same goes for writing. Try practising writing for a minimum of ten minutes every day, or most days.
Have a social media following, blog and email list
Are you doing writing just as a hobby, or do you want to make money out of it? If you fall into the former, you don’t really need to build up a following. If you fall into the latter, consider building a social media following, blog and email list before the novel comes out.
Why?
Consider this: you’re an unknown writer, competing with many thousands of self-published novels around the globe every single day; how will people find out about you and your novel if you don’t build up some contacts first?
Building an email list can take several months, even years, so the earlier you can start on this, the better.
Outline plot, setting and characters before starting your novel
Writers are often defined as either pantsers or plotters.
Pantsing is a shortened term for ‘seat of the pants’ writing, or writing spontaneously, without any structure or plan in mind.
Plotting is writing with a structure in mind, with plot, characters and setting all worked out before setting pen to the story.
Are you a pantser or a plotter, or somewhere in between? If you work well as a pantser, lucky you. I tried to be a pantser, and it didn’t work out that great. In fact, it was disastrous.
I had to throw out a hundred typed pages and lost a year’s worth of time trying to be a pantser with a story that was going nowhere. I had terrible trouble deciding on a plot and kept on changing it; a big, colossal waste of time.
WEIRD WORD OF THE DAY: ULTRACREPIDARIAN. Meaning someone who offers opinions beyond their scope of knowledge. This word originates from a famous Greek painter called Apelles who lived in fourth-century Athens BCE. One day he overhead a cobbler criticising the way he painted a leg and rebuked him, saying, ‘cobbler, do not go higher than your shoe.’
Do research to help you with your outlining of characters, setting and plot, in whatever form that may take, and aim to be decisive.
My pantsing days are well and truly over. I’m now a plotter, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m staying a plotter!
If you’re struggling with your writing, I strongly recommend that you become a plotter as well. Get the plot, characters and setting all worked out before you start your novel. Trust me, it saves a colossal amount of time and rewriting.
Even pantsers can benefit from a rough, sketchy outline before writing a story.
Set a writing schedule
Treat writing like a job and train yourself to write even when you don’t feel like it; even when you’re having a bad day and your writing sucks.
I was not good at this when I first started out! I used to just write when I felt like it, and because I was always struggling and unhappy with my writing, I used to leave it for weeks, or even months, before coming back to it again.
My discipline gradually started getting better over the years and I eventually settled into writing one day a week (on Sundays) every week. After about three years of writing like this, I managed to get something out that I was happy with and self-published it.
Set yourself a deadline to finish your novel and try to stick to that deadline as much as possible.
Do whatever works for you and your schedule, but a suggestion is to aim to write from 500 to 1,000 words a day, every day or most days, on your novel.
Don’t worry about editing as you go or about the quality of your writing, just get those words out every day and save it on your computer.
I used to constantly edit my work while I was writing, which really slowed the process down to a crawl. I would advise against doing this – it’s a big time waster.
WRITING EXCERCISE: Write a passage on your subject of choice using the ‘free writing’ technique for about five minutes. This is a technique where you keep writing continuously, with no editing, analysing or stopping. When you’re finished, leave your passage unedited, and try to read it without any judgement. How’d you find this experience? What observations did you make?
If you choose to write 1,000 words a day, guess what? In less than two months, voila! You have yourself the first draft of an averaged sized novel.
I really wish I would’ve done this when I first started out – just write 500 to 1,000 words a day – it would’ve saved so much time. It would’ve been so much better than just writing on Sundays.
I was a working single person, and spending a whole day of my precious weekend working on a novel felt too big of a sacrifice, especially as I was struggling and seemed to be getting nowhere with it.
Typing 1,000 words each day in the evenings during the week, disciplining myself to do some writing after work even when I felt a bit tired, would’ve been better.
Maybe next time!
Experiment with a schedule that works for you, whether it be mornings, afternoons, evenings, or weekends, and stick to it.
If you want more tips on how to be a better writer you can check out my article, how to improve your writing.
Writing, to me, its simply thinking through my fingers.
– Isaac Asimov
Stay tuned for part two of this blog next week, and happy writing.
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