Writing tips? Ideas to improve your writing
- Thread starter MonkeyShiner
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The most effective way to get tips that are specific to your current writing, you should build your post count to 50 and then submit a sample of your writing to the Share Your Work forum.
Since you don't specify what areas of your writing for which you are seeking help, you may want to dive into Uncle Jim's thread, which deals with all manner of writing issues. This is a free course in writing that is as good (actually better) as any book on writing (in my opinion). Start here:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8754
Since you don't specify what areas of your writing for which you are seeking help, you may want to dive into Uncle Jim's thread, which deals with all manner of writing issues. This is a free course in writing that is as good (actually better) as any book on writing (in my opinion). Start here:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8754
... keeping a diary or journal is a fairly standard practice. And it's probably a good way to go. Several famous writers whom I've read about kept diaries throughout their careers and used some of the material in their works. G'luck.
Read, read, then read some more.
Mine:
Write, write and write more.
Force yourself to pump out 1000 words a day, visit the SYW with a 1000 word short story and see what they think. Ready The Elements of Style, some classics (recommend Hemingway) and some award winning books to really grab what's good writing.
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Read a lot.
Write a lot.
Listen to free lectures on iTunesU (or wherever). (About anything)
Write a lot.
Once you've read Uncle Jim's stuff and poked around here awhile, try critiquing some things. If you're uncomfortable actually posting critiques yet, go read the stuff in SYW and just make mental notes to yourself. What don't you like? Why? What do you like? Why?
Read a lot.
Write a lot.
Read nonfiction things (articles or books or whatever), even if you only want to write fiction. Real life, oddly enough, can give you a lot of ideas.
Do Mad Libs.
Listen to popular music and critique it. Twinkle twinkle little star...WHAT. WHAT, Nicki Minaj? Loose thread. Unnecessary. "Get on the floor" is cliche. "If you a G, you a G G G/My name is Onicka, you can call me Nicki" <<I don't understand what my being a G has to do with that being your name.
Read things.
Hang around on this forumbecause you have no life because it is extremely helpful.
Get a tattoo of an inkwell made of a skull (extra points if the skull is not human) and a quill made of a penis bone. (Gonna have to be not human.)
Play Oregon Trail and use your imagination to make it more interesting. (Ford the river? What happens if you don't ford the river? What could go wrong in the effort to ford the river OMG THE LOCH NESS MONSTER GAVE US ALL SYPHILIS)
Critique, get critiqued, read things, write. (Not necessarily in that order.)
Write a lot.
Listen to free lectures on iTunesU (or wherever). (About anything)
Write a lot.
Once you've read Uncle Jim's stuff and poked around here awhile, try critiquing some things. If you're uncomfortable actually posting critiques yet, go read the stuff in SYW and just make mental notes to yourself. What don't you like? Why? What do you like? Why?
Read a lot.
Write a lot.
Read nonfiction things (articles or books or whatever), even if you only want to write fiction. Real life, oddly enough, can give you a lot of ideas.
Do Mad Libs.
Listen to popular music and critique it. Twinkle twinkle little star...WHAT. WHAT, Nicki Minaj? Loose thread. Unnecessary. "Get on the floor" is cliche. "If you a G, you a G G G/My name is Onicka, you can call me Nicki" <<I don't understand what my being a G has to do with that being your name.
Read things.
Hang around on this forum
Get a tattoo of an inkwell made of a skull (extra points if the skull is not human) and a quill made of a penis bone. (Gonna have to be not human.)
Play Oregon Trail and use your imagination to make it more interesting. (Ford the river? What happens if you don't ford the river? What could go wrong in the effort to ford the river OMG THE LOCH NESS MONSTER GAVE US ALL SYPHILIS)
Critique, get critiqued, read things, write. (Not necessarily in that order.)
Exercises: My favorite is to select passages from favorite authors and copy them word for word. By actually typing, rather than reading, I absorb details of word choice, sentence structure, characterization, etc, that I wouldn't see if I were merely reading.
It's also a good way to get around writer's block.
Read, and write more. Sorry, redundant post. Im taking NeuroFizz's advice so I can upgrade my skills as well.
I second this. There's no telling how much good keeping a diary will do your ability to process ideas.
Maybe even try messing around with your diary a bit to give you perspective on your writing. "This month I'll journal only about nature", "This week ever entry will be between 400 and 450 words", or "Today I'll write my diary in literary fiction style" etc.
That... Can't have been pleasant.
Try new tips/routines/etc for writing. There's no "right way to write", although some methods have proven successful. Try everything until you find something that works best for you.
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Check out our Flash Fiction forum, each month a selection of topics is posted (for 14 days in a row). Dare you try to write stories for all of them?! Even if you don't, maybe they'll tickle some thoughts and ideas.
There's also the Sunday night flash fiction challenge that kicks off in the AW chat room, check out the Flash Fiction Challenge sub-forum in Writing Exercises forum. Once the weekly topic is posted you have 90 minutes to come up with a story! Are you writer enough?
You can read and comment on other members' flash stories if you like, which could go some way towards figuring out what works and what doesn't work for you.
There's a suggested limit of 1,000 words for flash stories, but that's not to say they can't go longer or lead to bigger things.
-Derek
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I don't regret anything I ever tried, and I tried a lot. For instance, I spent mornings writing but afternoons for a month copying out my favorite verbs from a thesaurus, put them on tiny post-it notes and stuck them all over a wall. The plan was, I'd be stuck, or just musing, and I'd look up and see a good one and use it. Never happened that way, but I still think the exercise may have helped me somehow. I read a number of how-to writing books, and if they had exercises, I did them, cheerfully and with serious intent. In three cases, these "exercises" became sales and in two, cashed checks. In all other cases, I probably learned something. I've taken colored highlighters and analyzed novels for exposition vs. summary vs action vs dialog, for handling of time, for dialog tags, for description upon introduction of character. None of this replaces the writing time, which is most important, but it all gets tossed into the stew.
If you're poor, use your public library to get how-to writing books. If that's not your thing, also fine. Some people pick up craft unconsciously while reading good books; others benefit from directed study of the craft.
If you're poor, use your public library to get how-to writing books. If that's not your thing, also fine. Some people pick up craft unconsciously while reading good books; others benefit from directed study of the craft.
This. X1000, with the only partial caveat being you also need to give......you learn even more from actually critiquing and going elbows-deep into someone else's stuff than from only having yours critiqued. It may seem counter-intuitive that you can offer a good critique while your own stuff is being shredded, but everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses....
and there really isn't a "stay-at-home" substitute, I don't care how many books you want to read. So go out there, and get dirty.
Read everything, write much. Do both these tings and you should get better. Skip either one, and you'll fail.
LucindaLynx
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I agree with this. I've done this, and I'd like to believe it has helped me, even somehow.
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I always smile when I see this advice - gut instinct works fine when it's based upon one's technical knowledge and it's fifty-fifty whether a particular decision should go one way or the other.
But gut instinct is no substitute for learning the craft.
But gut instinct is no substitute for learning the craft.
Agreed. PLUS: dive into your character's mind, then the words should come by themselves.
The approach is different for everyone, but reading and writing are the foundations. On that base, you can put courses and books. Patience.
I write since I'm 12 or so. I had hand-written some volumes of exercise books, illustrated and neatly bind (needles to say, that it was just for my own amusement and my family's annoyance
) before I actually took a course in creative writing. It helped me to focus, to find flaws, to learn technical details. It still took 15 years before I had my first publication. I confess, I only read 2 "how to write"-books last year, to get the basics of screenwriting. I think, if you read them too soon, you might kill your creativity. But that's only my opinion.
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