Sometimes writing can be hard, even as a blogger or content creator. It can be difficult to sit down with your pen in hand and paper in front of you and get anywhere passed the word “the”. When it comes to being creative in life or trying to complete an assignment for a course or your job, you can end up very easily losing your way and struggling to continue without hitting that creative wall.
If you are new to writing, need some help for better writing skills, or want to know how to get published – here are some helpful tips below which will give you the knowledge you need to succeed.
The first draft won’t be that good
It is incredibly rare in life that the first draft of a piece which is written will be the last one. There are countless stages which take place in writing, and the first draft is often a chance for you to write down the basic idea of what you want to say without having to worry too much about your sentence structure or your punctuation.
It can be hard to write a first draft to begin with, but remember that this isn’t the be all and end all, you can change things later, so just let the words flow and stop being so specific. Besides, you’re building your writing skills.
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Avoid Jargon
Ahh, the thesaurus. It offers up a whole plethora of synonyms for every single word in the human language, and some of us are tempted to use it too much. But remember, if you are using your thesaurus on every single word in a sentence it won’t make any sense.
For example, let’s take this small phrase from an episode of Friends where Joey changes every single word in a sentence. Here’s the original and the jargon filled versions:
‘They are warm, nice people with big hearts.’
‘They are humid, prepossessing Homo sapiens with full sized aortic pumps.’
Hilarious! Do you see the difference?
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Ask for help from friends
If in doubt, get people to help you out. Think about asking your friends to read what you have so far and to give you their opinion on what you could do next or how you could change the story. When you have been stuck on an idea for a long time it can be hard to imagine any other options, but other people won’t have your preconceptions and therefore they can offer you a fresh perspective on the whole thing.
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Be independent
No one is going to make you a great writer, you are on your own. Writing is a skill which is very much like the other creative arts, you can’t learn it from someone in the same way as science, and you will have your own idea and way of doing it.
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Be brave
It is boring to stay within the boundaries of the norm, so you must be happy and brave enough to push through these walls and create your own version of reality. When you look at some of the most successful books in the world, they all have one thing in common: they are unique and they don’t conform to the normal rules of our world.
Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is an adventure which is totally unique and follows its own rules: Lord Of The Rings is a whole distance universe from our own: and A Song Of Ice And Fire has dragons… be brave with your writing and don’t worry about things making sense to other people right away. When you write in a new world, a new gravity or a new creature, just make sure you explain it.
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Run after inspiration
Don’t wait for a spark of inspiration to hit you like the Apple on Isaac Newton’s head… you need to grab onto inspiration in your environment and find it in the wild. Go on a website like Pinterest or Wattpad and see why everyone is writing about. Just get creative.
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Know it can be hard
Writing can be incredibly hard. It isn’t just a case of writing what comes into your head and slapping a title on it: you have to think of structure and sense in your tale. Whether you are writing a book, a poem or an essay it can be a difficult task. You could of course get some help with your writing from a ghostwriter or dissertation writing services, but where’s the fun in that?
Accept that it can be challenging, but be willing to try anyway.
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There are no rules
Although, there are many rule books, you have full control. If you want to write about dragons and aliens fighting on a spaceship, go ahead. There is nothing out there that tells you that you have to make your characters a certain way or have certain chapters in your work. Just do what feels right for you.
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Read to have better writing skills
If you don’t read books, you can’t expect to write one. Reading is a huge part of writing and becoming a great story-teller. By the act of reading you are looking at someone’s work and you can start to gain an insight into how writing should be done.
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Listen to criticism
When you have written a first copy of your book or essay, the next step you need to take is asking someone to read it for you and let you know what you can improve on and what doesn’t work in the story. It is incredibly important here that you go into the process with an open mind and the ability to take criticism.
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Write what you love
It is so important that you take this tip on board out of any of the ones on this list so far. When you sit down to write a story, you want the inspiration to come to you naturally and you also want to genuinely love the story you are telling. If you don’t write about something you love and are passionate about, how do you expect to create a blow away piece of work?
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Avoid writing in order
Whatever you do when you are writing a story, don’t think that you have to write it in order. Even though it can make more sense to write from beginning to end, this might not be practical and you may suddenly have inspiration for a later chapter early in the writing process. If you can write down your planned chapters and an outline of what might happen in each, you can pick and choose which one you fancy writing on a day to day basis, and this can make it easier for you to succeed in your writing.
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Keep editing
When it comes to writing a story you will want to think about the words on the page less as gospel and more as a flowing river. The words can be fluid and they can move around and change at any minute depending on how the story pans out for you, and this can mean that you are able to keep on changing the story page after page until your story evolves like a powered up Pokémon into something amazing.
Final Thoughts
Writing is a process; a creative process. So, don’t get discouraged, use these writing skills and tips to enhance your writing to become the best writer you can – whether it be for business or personal.
Do you have any advice that wasn’t mentioned?
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