"Writing Tips from Our Teachers" is a regular column in SCN's members-only quarterly Journal.
We've made this article from the September 2024 issue available to the public for a limited time. Enjoy!
Ten Tips That Can Make You a Better Writer
by Len Leatherwood
Here are a few writing tips that I have found helpful. I’m sure there are many more, but these are the ones that spring first to mind, which implies their importance. I implement these in my own writing and when helping my students edit their work. I hope you’ll find them helpful, too.
1) Allot some time every day for your writing. Five minutes, ten minutes, or twenty can be a start. Once you establish daily habit then you can slowly (or quickly) extend the time to whatever fits into your life. Pair your writing wit something pleasant: like a nice cup of tea. You’ll soon be looking forward to your writing and tea-drinking session.
2) Buy some small note cards that you can put next to you bed, in the bathroom, in your purse, in the kitchen, in the TV room, etc. and have a pen there, too. Write down fragment of thoughts, conversations, dreams, memories, etc., as the come to you. Have a spot in a desk drawer to keep these cards, and whenever you need some inspiration, take on out, read it, and start writing.
3) “Touch Your Writing Everyday.” This quote was mentioned in our recent Sarton/Gilda Award Winners Webinar. Sarton Winner in Memoir, Lara Messersmith-Glavin, said she has read this and realized that even on days when she can’t write for whatever reason, she can still be thinking about her project, doing research, mentally developing a character, etc. That way, your writing process is never far from your mind.
4) Resist minimizing the importance of a story you want to tell. I often hear my students say things like, “Oh, nobody would ever want to read this little story of mine. It’s just about washing dishes.” The truth is that a meditation on washing dishes might be exactly what someone would love to read. As they say in the Four Agreements: “Do Not Assume.” Little stories can be just as touching and important as big stories. Sometimes it’s those little stories that help another person see themselves and their experiences in your writing.
5) Let yourself play in your writing. Write about a topsy-turvy world with a character that is the polar opposite from you. Or write about that time you made an absolute fool of yourself or put your foot squarely in your mouth and add some humor to it. (You know, the humor you now have that at the time escaped you completely.) Write in the voice of a little kid or an old man or an immigrant who just came to our country from somewhere very different. Practice giving you imagination a chance to recharge and surprise you.
6) Write as fast as you can with no editing until you’re done. Let your fingers fly on the keyboard with the express goal of outrunning your inner critic. Don’t worry how good or bad the writing is. You’ll have time to clean it up later.
7) Take great pleasure in the fact that once words are on the page, you now have the luxury of going through each sentence and replacing the wrong word with the right one, adding a symbol you never thought about when rushing through the writing, adding an alliteration or a well-place metaphor or a bit of figurative language. Go line by line, refining, over and over. Before long, you’ll see your piece is improving and you are enjoying the process.
8) Baby-step toward the right expression if it doesn’t come easily in your rewrite. Get closer and let that be good enough. Trust that your subconsciousness is working even when you’re focused on something else in the piece. Slowly, the right expression will show itself.
9) All writing can benefit from cutting excess words. Remove adverbs and add stronger verbs. Take out “would” and put the verb that follows in the past tense. This saves word count and will strengthen your writing. Embrace editing. Your writing will thank you.
10) Whenever you feel discouraged with your writing, recognize that you’re in the company of all artists and writers throughout history. Push through the resistance and get words on the page. Write your truth in your stories, essays, and poems, and rejoice that you have the opportunity and ability to connect with yourself and the world through the written word. That, my friends, is a gift.
Len Leatherwood, SCN’s past president and current Online Classes program coordinator, has been teaching writing privately to students in southern California for the past twenty-four years. She is a nationally recognized writing coach as well as an award-winning author. Len has published work in flash fiction and nonfiction and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. Her blog, “20 Minutes a Day,” can be found here.
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