My Fabulous 5 Writing Tips
Hello, Subscribers! This is a post just for you, a thank-you for subscribing to my website and blog. As many of you already know, I am a writer, freelance editor, copyediting instructor, and soon-to-be self-published author. I invite you to explore my website, and check out my blog posts. To get you started, here are my five favorite writing tips.
1) Free-Write the First Draft: I absolutely love the first draft, and you should too. I honestly believe it may be the most fun a person can have as a writer. The first thing you have to do in order to love the first draft is put away your self-editor. I’m not saying the first draft is easy because it poses plenty of challenges, but it is, and should be, a wild ride, an exercise in unbridled creativity.
The first draft is the only time you can allow yourself (and your story) to meander down any path. When else can you entertain every idea, every thought? It’s also the only time you can wax poetic without bothering anyone or becoming subject to rolling eyes. Think about it: you can have your characters say whatever is on their minds, and do whatever it is they’re longing to do. You can let them achieve their glory (even if it doesn’t make sense) or have the best thing in the world happen (even if you know that won’t be the case when you write the second draft). You can have them curse a blue streak, if that’s what they want to do, then later tone it down, if that would be more appropriate.
The way I see it, the first draft is the time to encourage free thinking. Eventually you’ll need to reel it in, chop it up, and leave some of it on the cutting room floor, but for now you can have fun, entertain yourself and your characters, try out your weird plot twists, give your characters questionable qualities that make them not altogether likeable. The first draft is the time and the place to give all of your ideas—great or not so great—a chance.
2) Do not Prologue (used as a verb here) unless you feel it’s absolutely necessary to Prologue. This one goes out to all of the writers who believe they need a prologue to bring out their character’s backstory. I’m here to tell you that you don’t. Trust the readers. You don’t believe they’ll get it, but they will. They’re smart and they’re looking for clues. They need hints and they need to observe. That’s all. If there’s backstory that you can’t impart via hinting or forward-moving action, weave it into whatever is happening in the present. Weave, don’t Prologue.
On the other hand, if you use a prologue to jump-start the book with a key (exciting or very important) moment that will happen later in the story, then you may have an argument for using it. In this case the prologue will act as foreshadowing, and it certainly can hook the reader. But then the question becomes, do you really want to start the book twice? If you write a prologue, you still have to “start” the story with chapter one, which means that your book will have two beginnings.
Most writers I know have a hard time starting their books once. Don’t Prologue unless you feel strongly that a prologue will work to your advantage.
3) Study Story Structure: Use your favorite books to learn about story structure. By this I mean, reread your favorites while keeping an eye out for the way in which the story unfolds. A story that carries you away most likely has some very good bones. The page-turners, the can’t-put-it-downers, these are the books that have good story structure. They’re also the ones you should study up close. While many of us know that the book should start with an exciting scene and build from there on its way to the climactic scene, not all of us know what “build from there” actually means.
I resisted learning about story structure for years. I assumed it was a formulaic way of writing. Now I see it differently. Story structure is the skeleton upon which the story is supported. This is a big, big subject as far as novel-writing goes—far too complex for me to tackle in a list like this one—so if it interests you, I urge you to do further research. You’ll find that K.M. Weiland’s comprehensive Helping Writers Become Authors website does a wonderful job explaining this subject and countless others.
4) Study the Basics of Grammar. I understand that every writer has his/her own voice, and that sometimes grammar doesn’t 100 percent go along with whatever that style is, BUT I have been a copyeditor by trade for decades, and I know that some writers (not all) use their “unique voice” as an excuse to be lazy about grammar and the rules of proper English. That can be a problem when confusing the reader is the result. The reader won’t care about your “unique voice” if he can’t understand what you’re trying to say. Instead he will come upon your misused punctuation and awkward or indecipherable phrases and become annoyed. When readers become annoyed, they put your book down. They shake their heads and say, “How did this thing get published?” Or, “Boy, this guy has a lot to learn by way of the English language,” which is embarrassing because novelists are expected to be good writers.
Yes, you can hire a copyeditor to help you, but she can only make your manuscript as good as it can be. She cannot rewrite you to stardom. It’s just not going to happen. So work on your craft. Write a lot. Edit yourself a lot. Get those sentences to shine even before your copyeditor gets her hands on it.
5) Be a Beta Reader. Sometime after your third or fourth draft, you’re going to need to request feedback from readers. I find beta readers an absolute necessity. I don’t know how anyone can write a book well without them (though I admit I used to try).
Who are beta readers? Writer friends and reader friends. People who read your draft and tell you where you’ve gone astray. By that I mean, the places in the book that did not make sense to them and left them confused. What did James mean when he said that? Or, I thought the key was at Lily’s house, but then Augie found it at Sarah’s. How is that possible? Beta readers are very good at weeding out the little (and sometimes big) mistakes we can’t see because we are too close to the material. They also tell us when we’ve done something right. “Wow, what a great plot twist. Didn’t see that coming!” Or, “Beautiful writing in this paragraph.” In return for all of this wonderful constructive criticism, you will read their book and do the same for them.
After you have made revisions according to your beta readers, you will want to hire a professional editor. First, you’ll need a developmental editor. Think of her as an expert beta reader. She’ll catch things nobody else did and give you suggestions for how to fix them. She will also point out where you can “go deeper,” meaning get more out of whatever emotion or flow you’ve already got going.
After you’ve made revisions according to your developmental editor, and you have spiffed up the writing to the best of your ability, the manuscript is ready for a copyedit. This is best done by a professional as well. In my opinion, you (and your friends) can probably handle the proofreading that follows, as long as you do several rounds.
And that, my friends, is my list of favorite writing tips. I hope you find them useful as you write your next masterpiece! Thank you again for subscribing to my email list. You can expect to find one of my blog posts in your inbox two to four times a month. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to reach out to me via the Contact page on my website.
Happy Writing!
Kim Catanzarite is a writer, editor, and instructor for Writer’s Digest University. She has worked as a developmental and copy editor since 1994. Her book They Will Be Coming for Us will be published June 2021. Click Here for Special Offers.
