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10 Helpful Tips to Becoming a Good Writer:
1. Read great writers. This may sound obvious, but it
has to be said. This is the place to start. If you don’t read great
writing, you won’t know how to do it. Everyone starts by learning
from the masters, by emulating them, and then through them, you find your
own voice. Read a lot. As much as possible. Pay close attention to style
and mechanics in addition to content.
2. Write a lot. Try to write every day, or multiple times a day if possible.
The more you write, the better you’ll get. Writing is a skill, and
like any other skill, you have to practice it to get better. Write stuff
for yourself, write for a blog, write for other publications. Write just
to write, and have a blast doing it. It gets easier after awhile if you
practice a lot.
3. Write down ideas, all the time. Keep a little notebook handy (Nabokov
carried around index cards) and write down ideas for stories or articles
or novels or characters. Write down snippets of conversation that you
hear. Write down plot twists and visual details and fragments of song
lyrics or poems that move you. Having these ideas written down helps,
because they can inspire you or actually go directly into your writing.
I like to keep a list of post ideas for my blog, and I continually add
to it.
4. Create a writing ritual. Find a certain time of day when you can write
without interruptions, and make it a routine. For me, mornings work best,
but others might find lunch or evenings or midnight hours the best. Whatever
works for you, make it a must-do thing every single day. Write for at
least 30 minutes, but an hour is even better. If you’re a full-time
writer, you’ll need to write for several hours a day, as I do. But
don’t worry! It helps you get better.
5. Just write. If you’ve got blank paper or a blank screen staring
at you, it can be intimidating. You might be tempted to go check your
email or get a snack. Well, don’t even think about it, mister. Just
start writing. Start typing away — it doesn’t matter what
you write — and get the fingers moving. Once you get going, you
get in the flow of things, and it gets easier. I like to start out by
typing things like my name or a headline or something easy like that,
and then the juices start flowing and stuff just pours out of me. But
the key is to just get going.
6. Eliminate distractions. Writing does not work well with multi-tasking
or background noise. It’s best done in quiet, or with some mellow
music playing. Do your writing with a minimal writer like WriteRoom or
DarkRoom or Writer, and do it in full-screen. Turn off email or IM notifications,
turn off the phone and your cell phone, turn off the TV, and clear off
your desk … you can stuff everything in a drawer for now until you
have time to sort everything out later … but don’t get into
sorting mode now, because it’s writing time! Clear away distractions
so you can work without interruption.
7. Plan, then write. This may sound contradictory to the above “just
write” tip, but it’s not really. I find it useful to do my
planning or pre-writing thinking before I sit down to write. I’ll
think about it during my daily run, or walk around for a bit to brainstorm,
then write things down and do an outline if necessary. Then, when I’m
ready, I can sit down and just crank out the text. The thinking’s
already been done. For a great method for planning out a novel, see the
Snowflake Method.
8. Experiment. Just because you want to emulate the great writers doesn’t
mean you have to be exactly like them. Try out new things. Steal bits
from other people. Experiment with your style, your voice, your mechanics,
your themes. Try out new words. Invent new words. Experimentalize everything.
And see what works, and toss out what doesn’t.
9. Revise. If you really crank out the text, and experiment, and just
let things flow, you’ll need to go back over it. Yes, that means
you. Many writers hate revising, because it seems like so much work when
they’ve already done the writing. But if you want to be a good writer,
you need to learn to revise. Because revision is where good writing really
is. It separates the mediocre from the great. Go back over everything,
looking not only for grammar and spelling mistakes, but for unnecessary
words and awkward structures and confusing sentences. Aim for clarity,
for strength, for freshness.
10. Be concise. This is best done during the revision process, but you
need to edit every sentence and paragraph and remove everything but the
essential. A short sentence is preferred over a longer one, and a clear
word is preferred over two in jargonese. Compact is powerful.
