Through the years, I’ve listened to dozens of webinars on how to write, read many books on the same subject, and taught people how to write. With private tutoring, as well as classroom efforts, I’ve helped people gain confidence in their writing, resulting in one young man winning a Fulbright scholarship, several people completing books, and others feeling competent enough to do better in both academic and work worlds.
How do I write? Sometimes, with great difficulty. I have to work at it. Other times, the words just flow and I can point to thousands of words written in a day.
I’m not perfect, either! However, through the years, I’ve written almost every type of writing for work and personal projects, won awards, helped not-for-profits raise millions, and been told by people that I “changed their life.”
Rules for writing? If you’re a “pantser”- writing by the seat of your pants, or a “plotter,” someone who writes after extensive preparation with outlines, notes, etc., the first thing you need to do is . . .
Make the Commitment!
Find a place to write, get a computer, consider what you wish to write about, and start putting words on a page.
Although recent stories about AI, artificial intelligence, have made it sound like you could ease your path by using writing programs, I would coach you not to use them. You may be inadvertently plagiarizing someone else’s work.
If you have something you want to say, write it in your own words. Use sentences. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation can be checked later. But, prepare to check them. You can hire people, proofreaders, editors and other professionals to make sure you’re accurate and readable, but even professionally published writers have errors in their works. (Lately, I’ve seen a lot of books that have words left out. And they’re from bestselling authors.)
Here are some helpful steps:
1. Start each book with something that will catch readers’ attention. I coached someone who began their manuscript with “I tried to commit suicide . . . twice.” It certainly got my attention. The rest of the book needed work, but ultimately, the author finished the book.
2. Think through who your characters are. What do they want or are their goals? What are their personalities? Do they have friends? It’s useful to set up a spreadsheet so you remember their eye and hair color, their full name, any quirks they have, major events in their life, what they love, what annoys them, etc.
When you name your characters, attempt to give them a name starting with different letters of the alphabet. (I admit I’ve made this mistake, but the characters are all strong and can stand on their own. In one case, I renamed the character.)
Other questions you might want to know answers to before you begin: Do they have family? Where do they live? What were their childhoods like? Have they had any major traumas?
Knowing these things should make it easier to write your character, but don’t spew all the details in the first page. For instance, perhaps the character hates it when people are late. You could say, “Samantha tapped her foot impatiently and kept peeking at the edge of the curtain until she heard a car engine rumble.”
3. In writing, use all the senses to make your writing interesting to all potential readers. Some people are auditory/hearing learners, so using words like “groaned,” “beeped,” “rumbled,” and other cues will make the writing memorable for them.
Visual learners need words that are visually vivid. “The sunset exploded in an array of colors that filled the sky with shades of orange, red, gold, and yellow.” ““Oahu stretched below with azure skies and water, and pillowy clouds framing the sky.”
Those with a strong sense of smell might appreciate the character following the aroma of their mother’s pot roast up the street, then arriving, and announcing, “Mom, you made pot roast! When do we eat?”
Vivid words for those whose taste is strong could include, “savored,” “tart,” “tangy,” “fruity” and more.
For a romance, vocabulary for touch is a memorable and important component. Touching that results in goosebumps, arm hairs standing on end, stubbing a toe, and feeling a fabric’s texture can all enhance writing.
4. Keep your timeline for the characters in order so you can make sure they coincide with other events and with other characters. For instance, I made sure that the events of each day of the honeymoon were on a list so I could keep everything in order. When did they call home? What day did they go shopping? What day were they leaving?
5. People seem to have shorter attention spans these days. It used to be a rule to make chapters twenty pages long. Ignore that. Even five pages seem to be acceptable, as long as you finish the scene.
6. Each chapter’s start and end should have a hook to get readers turning pages and keep them going into the next chapter. The hook doesn’t need to be melodramatic, but just something that will leave the reader wanting to know more.
7. Know where you’re going. I don’t always know my exact ending, but I lead up to it so I can allow several ways to challenge my main characters and provide a surprise and tension at the end. The characters still get their “HEA,” Happily Ever After, but they’ve had to earn it.
8. Don’t “head hop.” If you’re writing fiction, try to keep only one character’s perspective in a chapter, section, or paragraph. This was something that I’ve been guilty of, but am getting better at recognizing the problem and fixing it. Just start a new chapter or section with the other character’s perspective and keep going. Otherwise, you can confuse your reader.
9. When you’ve finished writing the entire book, put it aside for a few days or week. Then make changes that jump out at you. Perhaps you’ve found you left words out, or a paragraph needs reorganizing, or maybe a sentence seems superfluous and you decide to leave it out. Maybe you need more details about a particular character. All of this is good.
10. Save the new version as a separate file (I date each version – i.e.060523) Save every time you take a break or end for the day. This has saved me endless grief when a file seemed to be lost.
10+. And last, but not least, enjoy your work!