Hints
Here are ten thoughts that should help you focus on the job in hand. They are distilled from a variety of sources, but they are all sound pieces of advice for new writers who want to actually get their stuff down in print.
1. Once you have your idea – write. Don’t worry about whether the prose is elegant or the plot makes sense – get the idea down while it is fresh. There is nothing like the initial fervour of creation. Give yourself permission to write rubbish in order to get moving. The hard work of editing and refining can come later.
2. Continue to write until that idea/poem/story/novel is done. The creation of the first draft is the all-important moment, but the early enthusiasm quickly wanes. You must retain the spirit of the project and see it through.
3. Discipline yourself. “I only write when inspired, but I see to it that I’m inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.” Get a routine. Even if you can’t do every morning (and few can) set aside time to write every week – and use it. If you are the kind of person who finds it useful to have a word-count target, then set one. If not, don’t. Find out what works for you.
4. Don’t procrastinate – get on with it. Finding displacement activities – email, new bits of software, staring out of the window, picking your nose – is a favourite pastime of the would-be author, but an unproductive one. Writing involves writing.
5. Write for the reader, not yourself. You may be setting down the most important events of your life in loving detail, but if you are not telling a good story – and telling it well – no one will care.
6. Learn your craft. Get to know why adverbs and adjectives should be avoided; why showing is better than telling; why withholding information can work better than -.
7. Create believable characters. Use people you know or have met. Mix up their characteristics and give them a new life in your story. Get to know them as if they were real people. Make sure they behave in the way that is consistent with their character.
8. Edit. Sharpen your knife and make the incisions. “Murder your darlings.” Get rid of those elaborations you have accidentally carried over from the Victorian novel you never wrote, and anything else that doesn’t belong or move the story forward. Then do it again, and again. A piece can never be called finished until this process has been completed, and you should spend as much time on this as you did in writing it in the first place.
9. Read. Other writers have acquired the skills you need to develop, so read what they have written and notice how they have told their stories; how they have achieved their effects. Even if you don’t think they have succeeded, consider why.
10. Persevere. Few writers – if any - are born to it. Most have learnt by trial and error. If things go wrong, find out why and learn from your mistakes. Then start again.
