Some Very Worthy Writing Advice

Wade through the weak or terrible writing advice online to find the good stuff

So that you, dear readers, do not think this site is all about negativity, I present some very worthy writing advice I found online.

Some Good’uns

Time is precious – make the most of it. We don’t all have the luxury to be full-time writers, but you part-timers have options. You can set aside a particular time each day to write. If you can’t do that, just squeeze writing in wherever you can. And along with that, try to divide up writing tasks. Designate some time for research, for writing, and for editing. And write every day!

Separate writing time from editing time. I can tell you first-hand that they are very different tasks. And trying to edit as you write interferes with your creativity. Just get out your pen and paper, or fire up your writing software/app of choice and full speed ahead! And after you have done that first draft, set it aside a day, a week, a month to let it “cool” and give you “fresh eyes” for rereading it. Don’t rush the process. Then—and only then—begin the rereading and editing. See my article on Substack or my author site.

Turn it off, shut it out. Only you can know what distracts you from your writing. Your cell phones. The Internet, especially social media. I have to have a movie or two playing while I write to shut out the world (school busses lumbering by, trash trucks, cars with loud music blaring, etc.). You might want music or even a news station with the volume turned down. Hubby used to have sportscasts turned low, finding the voices of the people talking there to be a nice droning background.

Don’t worry about word counts. They are very restrictive. Instead, tell yourself something like, “Today, I finish that big scene between protagonist and antagonist.” But it’s up to you. The main thing is to have a goal for the day, week, or even month.

Be organized. Whether you have written notes all over the place, type them on a cell phone app, or jot them in a word processing program on your desktop/laptop computer, keep them in an order that allows you to reference them quickly. I have a stack of 4x6 notepad sheets with all sorts of story ideas, another stack with ideas for articles, and another with things to check and add to the Freelan series (the biggest stack).

Some More Good’uns

Punctuation, Spelling, and Grammar Matter. Sure, you can break the rules as long as it works for your readers, but you will most likely be limiting those readers. Why risk it? Stick with standard punctuation, spelling, and grammar. And use it effectively in telling your story.

Don’t Dumb Down Your Vocabulary. Write for your audience. If it’s children’s books, stay at that age level. For adults, though, challenge them. There are over 100,000 words in the English language, as evidenced by my two-volume Oxford English Dictionary. Besides, if you simplify your language, it will sound dull as you use the same words over and over.

Active vs. Passive Voice (Showing vs. Telling). Active – someone doing something. Passive – something being done to someone. Example: Active – “Sally edited her book.” Inactive – “The book was edited by Sally.”

The golden rule here is to stick with active voice, but there are times when you can get by with passive voice, as I showed here. The whole point is clarity and engagement for the reader. If you can achieve this with passive voice, go for it. I find that passive voice often sounds natural in dialogue.

Explain your story to someone. It’s amazing how much clearer you will see your story if you try to explain it to someone. I also find that writing a synopsis or a book blurb also helps me see the essential events. Record your talk if you must, but beware of using a phone app to do this. You don’t want someone hacking that recording and stealing your story.

Keep focus on the story, not your writing tools. Use what facilitates your process. For me it’s MS Word only because I own the software (2003 version) and don’t have to risk someone stealing what I write online. I also used to teach the software and am familiar with most of its features. That means I can focus on the writing.

Even if you outline, be open to developing ideas. I usually know my beginning and ending and let the path between them unfold, but occasionally that destination has to change. Don’t paint yourself in a corner. Be open to that change. Who knows where you’ll end up.

Pacing needs to be right. A thriller is going to be faster paced, with readers flipping through the pages rapidly as they read. Romance stories will generally move slower, at least until the crucial climatic scene where he or she realizes the need to get to their love interest. Fantasy and Sci-Fi involve some lengthy and necessary descriptions (world building) of scenes and characters, so the pace will be even slower, at least in places. No matter the genre, some scenes will necessarily be slow but others fast. And a great tool for achieving this pacing variance is sentence and paragraph length, which is why advice to always have short sentences and paragraphs is so bad. It makes everything go at the speed of the front car at the Indy 500. Same goes for simplifying your writing. Simple sentences read fast. More complex sentences read slow. So you need to tune into that speed factor as you write, or your pace will not fit the story, no matter how hard you try.

Perfect your dialogue. Totally crucial. That’s why I spent so much time on a lengthy article about it. See it on Substack. Recently, a story I had entered in a contest (and that was a finalist) garnered this from the judge:

“…the dialogue just sparkles. A lot of writers say that dialogue is the hardest part of writing a story, but I think you’ve got the mastery of it.”

Don’t worry about your dialogue going on too long, though. Do what fits your story.

And the Very Best One

Write with no thought over what others may think. Sure, we all get a glow over those 5-star reviews or winning a prize in a writing contest, but if you don’t write something that satisfies you, why write? Besides, there will always be those out there who like your work. Tough to find them, but they are there.

Bottom Line (Final Note)

Write and write and write and write … and you will someday find yourself getting read and read and read and read!

Hope you found this helpful and have been inspired to start and/or continue writing!

See my article: Publisher Agent Fiction Genres Defined, with downloadable PDF.

Please check out my works in progress (WIPs). And thanks for reading.

NOTE: None of my text or images are AI-generated. You can rest assured that I pulled it all out of that stuff in my skull called a “brain.”

Disclaimer: I get no compensation for links to other sites and/or products in this post or on my site.