Do You Write, Too?
Do you love to write stories? If you do, how wonderful! You’ve chosen a very special, very exciting way to express yourself. With words, you can create pictures, share feelings, make people laugh, wonder and think.
If you’ve been writing stories, you probably know that it’s not always easy to get those great ideas that are in your head onto paper. It takes time and effort to turn an idea into something that others can understand and appreciate.
There are lots of tips out there for making your writing even better. (I’m always on the look out for advice myself as I grow as a writer!)
Here are my three most favourite tips (so far!) for making good writing great writing:
– Read your writing out loud. I find that this is the best way to edit my own work, to make sure that the words I’ve chosen properly express my ideas. It’s also a handy way to catch words and sentences that just aren’t working. If it doesn’t sound right out loud, it probably won’t make sense to your readers. Reading your writing out loud gives you a chance to fix what might not be working…and also to hear what sounds just right!
– Read books by other authors, especially those who are writing the kind of stories you are working on. When you study how your favourite authors tell a story, it helps you to understand techniques that will make your writing even better. I’m not saying that you should read other authors in order to copy them exactly – you need to find your own voice to tell your own story, of course! And it’s not just a matter of taking notes on how one author writes dialogue, or how another author describes a setting. There’s something magical that happens when you immerse yourself in a great book. The rhythm, pace, and feel for your kind of story gets in your bones and helps your stories to take shape. So get out your library card, and flex its muscles!
– Keep on writing! The desire to write stories is very special, and it’s important that you keep at it so that your ideas keep flowing. Sometimes, I wake up feeling that I’m out of ideas, or that my ideas may not be good enough for a story. The best thing that I can do when I’m in that kind of mood is to start writing, even if the first few sentences are nonsense. For me putting an idea–any idea–into words has a way of stirring up other ideas. Before I know it, I might have the seed for a character, the elements of a funny scene, or even the outline for a whole new book. If you love to write, keep at it! Once you start, who knows where your imagination will lead you!