“You’re so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.”— Tracy Chevalier
Quick & Dirty Writing Advice
Just a few things I’ve picked up and learned from other authors:
- Write what you want to read. Writing what you think will be popular will never be as satisfying, and it’s impossible to predict what will be popular anyway.
- Writer’s block is a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are reasons that you’re “blocked” from writing, such as mental health, exhaustion, lack of time, etc., but writer’s block itself doesn’t exist. You don’t wait around for inspiration (and published authors certainly can’t, being on deadlines). You can dip into your well of motivation and inspiration by reading other books, watching movies/shows, talking about your projects, and rereading your own writing. But waiting around for your muse takes the control out of your hands. Writing is active, not passive. If you’re lacking motivation, write anyway, and the act itself may inspire you.
- Burn out is a real thing. I’ve gone for months without writing because that’s what I needed to do. It didn’t make me any less of a writer, and it won’t make you less of one either.
- Using the word “said” is great! It’s preferred 90% of the time! It’s one of those words that the reader skims over without noticing, which smooths the flow of your writing. When you add a different dialogue tag to every piece of dialogue (such as explained, argued, protested, agreed, etc), it slows down your writing and distracts from what’s actually being spoken. Use dialogue tags sparingly, and you’ll make a bigger impact when you use them.
- Learn to stop leaning on filter words. Words like “feel” “noticed” “saw” “heard.” These words put distance between your audience and what the character is experiencing.
Example: “I felt his hand on mine.”
Can be changed to: “His hand touched mine.”
Example: “I smelled freshly brewed coffee coming from the kitchen.”
Can be changed to: “The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted from the kitchen, filling the air with its enticing scent.”
- Want to write more? Then write! If you write consistently and with regularity, whether it be every day or every weekend, you get into the habit of writing. Put on ambient sounds, grab a snack, make a cup of tea, and do that every time. Your mind starts to associate those things with writing time and puts you in the mindset before you even open that doc.
- Do not edit your WIP! Get that first draft written without going back to edit. I’m serious, don’t edit a thing until you’re at a point where you’re ready to post. Only then go back and edit, otherwise your writing momentum will grind to a halt. If you need to read back a couple paragraphs to get your bearings, then go for it, but I promise you you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor by leaving editing to the very end.
- First drafts aren’t supposed to be pretty or even coherent. Their only purpose is to get words on the page. Let them be a mess. That’s what the editing stage is for, to clean everything up, add new scenes, delete redundant ones, whatever makes the story better. Besides, once you start writing more, the less editing you’ll need to do as your skills improve.
- And for my last bullet point, similar to the dialogue tag advice, don’t overuse your adverbs. You don’t need to describe every action with an adverb. When you use them less, they make a bigger impact. There are other ways to describe your character’s action.
Example: “He spoke quietly.”
Can be changed to: “He dipped his head, casting a glance around the room as he spoke.”
I am guilty of adverb abuse and breaking a few of these rules myself, but once you learn the rules, you can gauge when and how to break them for the sake of elevating your writing.
This advice is meant to be practical, as it’s coming from someone who works over 40 hours a week and is often distracted by exhaustion and chronic illness. My time and energy is limited, but I find writing to be very worthwhile.
For more writing advice, I suggest Alexa Donne’s youtube channel. She started writing with fanfiction, so a lot of her information is applicable to fanfic authors too.
