Advise to a New Writer
Writing is very much a learning process, one best accomplished by, well, writing. The best thing an aspiring author can do is to pay attention to what some of your first readers and those you’ve ask to edit tell you. While there are always a few who are always going to insist on being snarky and hyper critical no matter what you do, most offer pearls of wisdom and advice that, when heeded in your own fashion, really does improve your writing.
Two things I will advise you to do right off to any new writer is to take your time and study they style of those writers you enjoy.
I find the more I rush something, the more I screw up. When you’re writing, don’t fire off your first draft or even your second to someone to look at. Write a digestible section, than let it sit a day. Come back and re-read it when you’re fresh and alert. Being a dinosaur, after screen composing and editing a chapter once on the computer, I print out my work, double spaced with plenty of room on the margins for notes and edit the hard copy. You would be surprised by how different the story ‘feels’ when reading it printed in back and white on dead trees.
The other is to go back and re-read the works of those writers you enjoy and study them. Figure out what it is you enjoy about their style and the way they handle their characters, dialogue, description of action, etc and use their efforts as an example. Don’t slavishly copy their style. Rather, see how you can incorporate some of their techniques and manner of writing into your own. In time, you’ll develop your own distinctive style. That is how I learned.
Any who, do keep plugging away and remember, writing is an endurance contest, not a sprint. It’s also fun, so enjoy.
Until next time, best of luck.
Write on!
Nancy Cole