Hello! I hope you are having a great day, and I actually wanted to have writing advices from you if it's okay? I saw that English isn't your first language yet you really write well, excellent even if I'm being honest. For example, do you write in your mother language first and then translate it to English or write it in English from the start?
It's just that you really write so unfairly amazing and wondered if there was anything that helped you along the way. It's definitely alright if you wouldn't like to share them of course! Have the greatest day, can't wait to read the new chapters of this series!!
Oh my gosh, that is such a high praise!! Thank you so much. And I completely relate to the struggles of writing as an ESL speaker.
I honestly donāt know how helpful my writing advice is... because Iāve never written anything except fanfics. I also have no real intention of ever writing an actual book someday. But I do have nearly a decade of experience writing fics on Quotev to Wattpad to ao3.
Disclaimer though: I am not entirely sure any of this qualifies as good writing advice. I can only really break down my own process and the slightly insane methods that somehow work for me.
I speak around seven languages and funnily enough I learnt a huge portion of my English through reading fanfics growing up. But I am also Indian, so all my education happened in English. Also, I should probably clarify that I do exist in predominantly English-speaking environments most of the time. Iāve lived in English-speaking countries for a couple of years now, most of my colleagues are British and I actually think directly in English most of the time rather than mentally translating from my native language first. So even though itās technically not my native language, I am constantly surrounded by it.
My actual writing process in English is kind of chaotic.
First of all, I think a huge part of improving in English language writing simply comes down to practice. I write almost 4-5 hours every single day and Iāve been doing that consistently for years now. So naturally, a lot of things that once felt difficult eventually started becoming instinctive over time. I genuinely think anything you do daily, especially creatively, youāre bound to improve little by little.
For my slice-of-life fics, I honestly just write whatever feels natural and often post something very close to the first draft with very little editing. I also have visual overstimulation issues due to ADHD, so my punctuation sometimes follows the rules of my native languages more than strict English grammar as it makes it easier to edit later. I break a lot of conventional writing rules there and mostly just focus on having fun with the fics.
But with something like the Empyrean series or By Right of Conquest, the process becomes much more deliberate because I am trying to emulate very specific tones and styles. Empyrean is intentionally written almost like a mythological royal court play, heavily inspired by the English translations of Indian mythology.
By Right of Conquest is much more straightforward medieval political romance, has a much stronger stylistic influence from a very popular Indian historical saga set around the 10th century.
I think a lot of my writing style honestly comes from trying to recreate the emotional and narrative styles of stories I grew up with, just through the medium of English instead.
One thing I would genuinely recommend to ESL writers is... reading English translations of books or stories you already love in your native language. I think it helps a lot because you already understand the emotional and cultural context of the original text, so you start noticing how those ideas are carried across into English.
So before writing, I usually immerse myself in books, plays or texts from the historical periods I am drawing inspiration from. Then I write the first draft very plainly, just getting the scene and emotions onto the page before I lose them.
And for these fics specifically, I am also trying to follow punctuation a bit more properly than I usually do.
One trick that genuinely helps me while writing first draft is listening to English translations of works I love as audiobooks in the background, especially if I am trying to capture a specific tone or writing cadence. It puts me in the right headspace and helps me naturally pick up certain words and sentence structures that I can then carry into my own first drafts (without plagiarising obviously). It honestly saves me a lot of editing time later.
And then comes the truly painful part, opening the thesaurus. I basically go through the prose word by word, translating my English into more elevated or archaic English. The problem is that, as an ESL speaker, I donāt always instinctively know the etymology or historical feel of certain English words. Also, the sentence structures in my first drafts are often heavily influenced by my native languages rather than natural English rhythm.
But at some point I also choose to stop fighting that entirely, because I think there is a unique charm about different linguistic thought patterns in English prose. Even when itās imperfect, it creates a voice that feels distinctly mine.
And honestly, I also think people shouldnāt be so afraid of ābreaking rulesā while writing in English. I am never going to sound like a native English speaker no matter how much I practice and Iāve kind of made my peace with that. If my prose occasionally sounds like it was written by an ESL speaker, then thatās okay.
English is ultimately just a tool for me to tell the stories I want to tell. The important thing is whether I am enjoying the process and communicating the emotions.
And for dialogue specifically, I am very influenced by plays, debates and dramatic monologues. I also read a lot of poetry across all the languages I know, and sometimes even English translations of poems from languages I donāt know. I honestly think itās important for writers to read across genres and artistic forms to take inspiration from all of them and shouldnāt stay confined by language barriers.
As for humour though, mine is honestly entirely Indian. I am usually trying to translate a very specific kind of comedic cadence into English and sometimes it works, while other times the context just completely disappears in translation and suddenly the joke is no longer funny at all. In those cases, I usually just let it go rather than forcing it into the prose.
And when it comes to translating certain Indian philosophical or cultural concepts into English, thatās honestly something I still struggle with sometimes.
Certain theme like dharma, karma⦠carry such layered cultural and emotional meanings that there often isnāt a perfect English equivalent for them. So most of the time I end up trying to find the closest conceptual translation instead. For example, I might use words like ārighteousnessā ādutyā āfateā ādevotionā depending on the context.
But even then, I think a lot of the original nuance inevitably gets lost in translation, which is probably why I lean so heavily into atmospheric symbolism, emotional subtext and character dynamics while writing. I am usually trying to recreate the feeling of those ideas in English rather than translating them literally.
Ironically, one of my favourite parts of writing in English is that after posting, I can immediately hit Google Translate and read it back in my native languages and genuinely, itās such a joyful experience. After days of editing and staring at English sentences until all the words lose meaning, reading the fic in my own languages suddenly makes it feel beautiful and alive again instead of feeling like that paragraph I edited seventeen times for last two weeks.
Iāll let you in on a little secret, my fics actually flow perfectly when translated back into my native tongue, whereas in English they sometimes feel much stiffer to me.
I think a lot of that comes from the fact that the emotional and sentence structure in my head are still influenced by my own languages, even when I am thinking directly in English. So sometimes the prose feels slightly restrained or overly deliberate in English, but the moment I read it in my native tongue, suddenly everything sounds natural and exactly the way I intended.
And once I finish a chapter, I always have it read aloud to me afterward. Thatās probably one of the most useful editing tricks I know because awkward phrasing, strange spellings or grammatical mistakes become immediately obvious when you hear the prose spoken out loud instead of silently reading it in your head.
I am very bad at explaining my process without examples, so apologies if this all sounds slightly incoherent.
So, please just write whatever fics you want to write. As long as you enjoy the process, nothing else matters.
And please send them my way, once you've written it. I would love to read them!!!
Honestly, thank you so much for reading the series and taking the time to reach out.
Hope youāre having a great day too! You honestly just made mine š«¶š»ā¤ļø