Tips for Writers
1. Read. Read everything. Read books and magazines. Read stories and poetry. Find favorite authors and read everything they’ve written. And always be on the lookout for new favorite authors. Don’t be afraid to try a new kind of book. Mysteries and adventures are fun, but so are quiet stories about friendship and families. Reading different kinds of books makes your own writing richer.
2. Write. Write every single day. I can’t stress enough how important this is. Writing is just like playing the piano or jumping rope or pitching baseballs: you have to practice, practice, practice in order to be good at it.
3. Daydream. Picture yourself being a writer. One of the first steps in making any dream come true is seeing it clearly in your mind.
4. Play. Every writer is actually playing “make-believe” on the page. Use every single opportunity to play pretend—with your stuffed animals, your friends, your pets. If you’re going to be a writer, you’ve got to have a wild imagination.
3. Daydream. Picture yourself being a writer. One of the first steps in making any dream come true is seeing it clearly in your mind.
4. Play. Every writer is actually playing “make-believe” on the page. Use every single opportunity to play pretend—with your stuffed animals, your friends, your pets. If you’re going to be a writer, you’ve got to have a wild imagination.
One of My Imagination Games
5. Learn how to take criticism. When you share your writing, you’ll hear ideas on how to make your writing better. Sometimes, you’ll agree with the reader, and sometimes you won’t. But you have to keep an open mind. Every writer gets suggestions from her editor about how to improve her book. You’ve got to learn early on how to work with those suggestions.
Journaling Writing Exercise
The absolute most crucial part of writing a novel, I think, has to do with getting to know your characters. If you know your character as well as you know yourself, your story will come to life! One of the best ways to get to know your main character is to write a journal. Use everything that happened to you during the day, and imagine how your main character would have responded to or handled those events.
Some things to consider as you write in your journal:
- Does your character have a magical power? If so, how would your character use it? For example: Let’s say you were standing in the lunch line when someone accidentally stepped on your toe. In your own life, you probably said, “Ooomph!” and the stepper (hopefully) apologized, and lunch went on as normal. But imagine that your character has the ability to blow gale force winds of 1000-mph when upset. By just saying, “Ooomph!”, your character has accidentally knocked over every table in the cafeteria, and the food from the lunch line is splattered all over the walls! Now what happens through the rest of lunch?
- Is your character from another time? How would a simple afternoon of going to the movies be different for a time-traveler from the 1800s?
- Maybe your character doesn’t have any superpowers, isn’t a time-traveler. Maybe they’re a fourth / fifth grader—a regular old Joe, like the rest of us. How does being shy change what happened in the cafeteria line scenario? How would the class clown respond to getting his (or her) toe stepped on? What if your character is an athlete, and wants to play in the big game, and is hiding the fact that her toe is broken? Would a whelp of pain expose the secret?
It’s amazing what those character journals can do—they help you get to know your character like nothing else. Sometimes, though, your own daily events can also help you figure out some of the events of the book, too!
Some things to consider as you write in your journal:
- Does your character have a magical power? If so, how would your character use it? For example: Let’s say you were standing in the lunch line when someone accidentally stepped on your toe. In your own life, you probably said, “Ooomph!” and the stepper (hopefully) apologized, and lunch went on as normal. But imagine that your character has the ability to blow gale force winds of 1000-mph when upset. By just saying, “Ooomph!”, your character has accidentally knocked over every table in the cafeteria, and the food from the lunch line is splattered all over the walls! Now what happens through the rest of lunch?
- Is your character from another time? How would a simple afternoon of going to the movies be different for a time-traveler from the 1800s?
- Maybe your character doesn’t have any superpowers, isn’t a time-traveler. Maybe they’re a fourth / fifth grader—a regular old Joe, like the rest of us. How does being shy change what happened in the cafeteria line scenario? How would the class clown respond to getting his (or her) toe stepped on? What if your character is an athlete, and wants to play in the big game, and is hiding the fact that her toe is broken? Would a whelp of pain expose the secret?
It’s amazing what those character journals can do—they help you get to know your character like nothing else. Sometimes, though, your own daily events can also help you figure out some of the events of the book, too!