What is your favorite writing tips ?

[Sharm]

Hmm, I'd have to think about that. I have been to a lot of writing symposiums and listen to Writing Excuses so there's been a lot of good advice over the years. I'm a fantasy writer though, so my interests in advice are going to be a little different. I guess one would be Brandon Sanderson laws of magic (first and second). I don't remember who said it, but someone said something to the effect of "You don't wait for inspiration to strike, you chase it down and beat it into submission." And then there's BICHOKTAM, the advice for anyone who wants to know how you actually do things like meet deadlines, be prolific, write novels, or get better. Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard, Typing Away Madly.

[nancyjose]

Just target 100 words at a time. That's an easy amount to do in one quick sitting, and you won't feel as much pressure. You can usually get 100 words in a couple paragraphs. Do 20 of those and you are well over your count for the day. I have to write a short essay about family for my English class. I always use this methodology as I am writing an essay. Hope my tip helps you.

[AlgaeDrone]

Maybe the best advice I've gotten is

1.) After you write something, wait a whole day before looking at it again. You'll find all sorts of flaws and things that you want to change that you might notice after you've been focused just writing for a long time.

2.) Show, don't tell. I know everyone says this, but I really like it. Don't say something is scary, explain to people aspects of it that make it scary. Don't say someone is mean, have some dialogue from the person showing that they're mean, etc.

[GhostWriter37]

1.) After you write something, wait a whole day before looking at it again. You'll find all sorts of flaws and things that you want to change that you might notice after you've been focused just writing for a long time.

Much like this, never trust something written past midnight. Nothing good happens past midnight. You're gonna have a bad time.

[olivialeeper]

I always write 300-500 words at a time, because that's the length of an average essay. I'm still in school, so that length comes naturally to me. I am doing my military science major. When I get tired of a scene, I skip ahead in the story or go back to fill in a gap that I didn't write before. This can get a little confusing if you don't have a good handle on your story, but it helps loosen things up a little. Whenever you get stuck, just tell yourself that you're not going to let anyone read it. Usually when I'm stuck it's because I'm imagining other people reading what I wrote and judging me harshly.

[meh]

Agree with waiting a day before re-reading what you've written. I find that printing and reading a physical copy makes it a lot easier to catch mistakes you might otherwise miss.

[Flowers from Nowhere]

If you can take something out of the story, without changing the story, get rid of it.

[kaleidofish]

One of the most liberating tips I ever received: "write a shitty first draft." Don't self-edit as you work. Let everything go. Guess it's sort of like BICHOKTAM. "Kill your darlings" is another good one!

[LateWhiteRabbit]

One of the most liberating tips I ever received: "write a shitty first draft." Don't self-edit as you work. Let everything go.

That's some of Pixar's advice as well. They say you won't even know what your story is truly about until you finish it. Then you rewrite it, knowing what to focus on this time.

[Aurélie]

Chuck Palahniuk's advice of "unpacking" goes further into the idea of "show, don't tell" and is one of my favourite tips. I'm yet to find any tips that particularly resound with me for writing dialogue, though, and VNs tend to be more dialogue-heavy, so I still struggle a bit with that.

[Ophelia]

Chuck Palahniuk's advice of "unpacking" goes further into the idea of "show, don't tell" and is one of my favourite tips. I'm yet to find any tips that particularly resound with me for writing dialogue, though, and VNs tend to be more dialogue-heavy, so I still struggle a bit with that.

Okay, wow. This is some seriously good advice. Some seriously, horrible but awesome advice.


Now I hate to go and replace every thought verb in my VN.

[cesullivan]

Keep a little journal with you all the time to write down your ideas (I used to use memo books, but now I've actually started using a notebook app on my tablet). Try to write down at least one new story idea each day, but you use it to write down notes for your current project (or you could keep those seperate, which might be a good idea--I'm not that organized, though...)

Also, don't just sit down and try to write a story. Do some prewriting first...character studies, world building, etc. I'm sure that most of you already know that, but I know when I was younger and even more stupid than I am now, I'd just sit down in front of a blank page and try to write...which is SO much more difficult than writing when you've got background information prepared.

When you do your prewriting, you should write things that never even appear in your story at all. J.K. Rowlings actually wrote class schedules for all her characters, just so she would know where they were at any given time of the day (at first that sounded a little crazy to me, but after taking her lead and doing the same thing for the characters in my current project, I can see exactly why she did it).

[Green Glasses Girl]

What I learn every NaNoWriMo time:

1) Start.
2) Finish.

I sounds pretty basic, but you wouldn't believe how many stories I have written in the past that never have a conclusion, never reach the climax, and sometimes don't go beyond the inciting incident. Those stories remain unfinished. When you actually complete a story, you can always go back to edit, revise, and retype. With an unfinished story, going back to do all those things is depressing, especially when it will never see the light of day!

[fullmontis]

It's already cited in the OP, but it's worth repeating: "Inspiration comes with action". I wish I read it years ago, it would have saved me a lot of frustration and years waiting for the Muse to finally gift me the perfect story.

[Sharm]

I'm not actually the OP, the first post was deleted for some reason.