Tips for Aspiring Writers/Authors

Writing Tips for Other/Aspiring Authors

1.       The best way to learn to write well is to read from both good authors and bad authors. You have to decide what’s good writing and what’s bad writing.

2.       Give your characters choices and consequences; it shatters the linear feel of a storyline.

3.       Live in the world you create. Many writers know things about their world that never make it into the book(s) they write, because they want to make it real to themselves so they can make others believe it’s real. Readers are intuitive creatures, and they know if something has been fleshed out without ever knowing it themselves.

4.       Treat all your characters as if they are secondary characters. Some of my best characters are secondary characters, because I’m not committing them to a preconceived plot line. Don’t be afraid to exaggerate character’s personalities and mannerisms.

5.       Once you really know your characters, let them take over the story. They usually will not disappoint you.

6.       Most good ideas that ‘stick’ aren’t produced after a moment of inspiration. They are produced after you toil and write shit.

7.       Speaking of writing shit, write, even if it’s shit. I have a saying “It’s easier to edit a scene than it is to build a world in your head.” Writer’s block is the expectation that the next thing you write will be unedited and perfect. It won’t. It never is. Write that shitty shit.

8.       Learn to convey emotion and find your voice. If you write about the worst thing that ever happened to you, and then you place that next to the worst thing that ever happened to your character, does the voice and style match up? If it doesn’t, you don’t know your character as well as you thought you did, and you need to bleed that emotion into you character.

9.       If you love your [unedited] book so much you want to marry it, throw a George RR Martin themed “Red Wedding” for it, because it needs to die. You need to be as objective as possible before you even begin editing. That’s why most authors recommend waiting a few weeks to a month to edit it after they finish. For example, here’s an atheists view of the Holy Bible (quiet possible the most objective person to read it):

“Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.”