👶 - Advice for new writers
I’m not sure how qualified I am to be giving advice, but here goes:
Read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Not just fanfiction - get outside of your comfort zone. Think about what you’re reading. Notice the choices that authors make, the methods they use to guide you down a certain path. Notice when it doesn’t work, and why.
Listen. Listen to the way people talk, in movies and on TV and in real life. Notice how one character says “Yes,” while another says “Yeah,” and a third says “Uh-huh.” Try reading your prose aloud and see how it flows. Try reading your dialogue aloud (without tags) and see if you can tell the speakers apart.
Try new things. Different points of view, different narrative voices. Write a scene, then write it again from someone else’s perspective. Play around with language. Don’t be afraid to fail. I’ve written loads of stuff that I later realized wasn’t very good. The only thing that happens to you if you write a bad story is that you may learn to write a better one.
Get feedback from a person whose opinion you trust. Sometimes you’re too close to the story to be able to tell when the pacing feels off, or a piece of exposition isn’t needed, or the conclusion feels like a leap. A second pair of eyes can help with that. (Caveat: only ask for feedback when you’re ready to listen to it. You don’t have to follow suggestions you don’t agree with, but don’t take them personally either.)
Study writing. Demystify it. Good writing isn’t magic: it’s hard work. The bulk of it is technical skill. Like anything else, it improves with study and practice.
P.S. Get off Tumblr and go write. ;)
