3 Writing Tips From an Author
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Sometimes all we need to get started is a little motivation. We Google “writing tips for beginners” and are told to create a 1,000 biography for every character, or a 10-page outline.
Yikes. No wonder so many people stop before they start.
Here are three writing tips from an author for you if you’re just getting started—writing tips that aren’t going to scare you away before you even pick up your pen or open your laptop.
#1: Treat yourself with a reward
Think back to when you were a kid—recall a reward that you desperately wanted.
I can think of a bunch: my name under the sunshine that read “THANKS!” on my second grade teacher’s chalkboard; the Kind Student of the Week badge in fifth grade; the shopping spree to the mall my mom promised me if I brought home all A’s all year.
As adults, many of us have forgotten the art of rewarding ourselves for a job well done. We have trained ourselves to perform at our best as a kind of standard expectation, without taking a moment to pat ourselves on the back—or even better, give our inner child a treat.
When I was in my 20s I was working on a book (my first book!) and living in New York City. Every morning on my way to work, I passed this incredible ice cream truck. I never stopped because it was morning, and...one doesn’t eat ice cream in the morning.
But one morning I gave myself a promise: When I finish this book, I’m getting morning ice cream.
Suddenly my morning commute became motivational. I’d pass those big, condensating tubs and think: Will I get mint chocolate chip that future day (my usual), or something else?
When I did actually finish the book, I wrote a poem about it. Here it is:
The Reward
I decided to deny myself the ice cream
until the day I finished the book,
and when that day came I
found I no longer wanted the ice cream
because I had the book.
However:
It was fun to walk by the pistachio tub each day,
my feet hot,
and pretend I still wanted it, but was waiting.
Over the years, my goal rewards have been all sorts of things. I’ve given myself a blanket; a jacket; a necklace. I've chosen experiences—a cooking class, a vacation, a bike ride to Coney Island.
These items and experiences are all special to me because of what they symbolize—a goal, reached.
In my course, The 12-Week Book Draft, one of the first assignments is to pick a goal reward for when you finish your book. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It can be something small, like ice cream.
So that’s the first writing tip for you from a published author if you’re a beginner, and I hope it’s a fun one: What do you want to reward yourself with when you finish whatever it is you're working on?
We’re all kids in adult clothing. Put something tasty at the end of your work. You will have earned it.
Think positive
As an author, this is another powerful tip that is worth mentioning.
I want to share with you a worksheet that my therapist gave me a while back. It was titled “Unhelpful Thinking Styles,” and it described thought patterns that lead to destructive or unhelpful behavior or ideas.
One of these thinking styles was “Over-generalizing: Seeing a pattern based upon a single event, or being overly broad in the conclusions we draw.”
Over-generalizing is an old friend of mine. Here are some examples of this phenomenon from my writing life:
Over-generalizing: “This draft is terrible.”
Accurate: “There is some good stuff in here, as well as some stuff that needs to change.”
Over-generalizing: “I’m not as good a writer as X person and will never be.”
Accurate: “My skill set as a writer differs from that of others, and it is always evolving.”
Over-generalizing: “I have no drive.”
Accurate: “I’m lacking motivation at the moment and might think about ways to bring it back.”
Another thinking style was “Disqualifying the Positive: Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done. Saying ‘that doesn’t count.’”
Disqualifying the positive is also a friend, especially when it comes to reading old work.
This same example works for this category, too:
Over-generalizing: “This draft is terrible.”
Accurate: “There is some good stuff in here, as well as some stuff that needs to change.”
A writing tip I wish I’d known when I was starting out was not to invest too much in my bad work.
Just because I have a bad writing day doesn’t make me a bad writer.
Just because I wrote a bad paragraph doesn’t make it a bad story, or draft I should abandon.
As you get started, you’ll save yourself a lot of misery if you adopt this kind of rational attitude from the getgo.
When you look back on your work, instead of only focusing on what you don’t like or what needs to change, it’s important to recognize what’s working, too.
This way, we can do more of it. We can affirm what we’re doing well. And we can learn both from what we’re doing right as well as what we’re doing wrong.
At the end of every writing day, ask, what do you like about your work?
If you’re bored, your reader is bored
Now for a craft-based writing tip from an author—my favorite craft-based writing tip, in fact.
I often say to my students, myself, and any writer who will listen to me: If you’re bored, your reader is bored.
It’s amazing how often I have to remind myself of this.
Mary, if you’re bored, guess who else is? Everyone else is.
The inverse of this, however, I have also come to believe is true, at least to an extent.
Typically if I’m having a good time, or I’m really sad or afraid for my characters—genuinely, truly afraid—that feeling is captured in the writing itself. It’s like an infused olive oil—my feelings are the rosemary, basil or garlic in this analogy, and the oil is the book. When I open the draft back up weeks or months later, the scent is there. (Did you know there are people whose job it is to taste olive oil? I know; we've all made the wrong life choices.)
If my teaching has a single message, I think it would be this: The energy you bring to writing is what your reader will experience. You are charting the experience your reader will have; they will be following in your emotional footsteps.
If you’re disengaged, they’ll be disengaged. If you care deeply, it’s much more likely that they, too, will care for your characters.
I find this both a burden and a relief. It’s a burden because it means I can’t phone it in. It’s a relief because it’s a simple charge: It means I just have to show up, emotionally, on the page. The main obligation is to be present.
It also means that, while drafting, there needs to be a point at which I, as the author, don’t know what’s going to happen. I have to be scared that there isn't going to be a satisfying resolution. I must sincerely wonder if there is any way my characters will resolve this issue.
Because that is how you create genuine suspense: by experiencing it.
As you write, pay attention to the energy you bring to your writing. Do you already know how it’s going to end? Can you open it up in a new direction and throw yourself for a loop?
How can you create a genuine emotional experience for you—the writer?
