Writing Tidbits #1
For as long as I can remember, I’ve written stories.
I had a very vivid imagination. The cause and cure of anxiety as a child – I created worlds, lived in them. Looking back, it felt like frolicking around with one foot in the real world and one foot in another dimension. Over the years, my brain matured and that bright spark of imagination dulled, as it does. But I still liked to write stories.
As I grew up, reality set in. It turns out that writing a story – a decent one, at least - is actually really, really hard. It’s a skill that has to be honed. It doesn’t always come naturally. Annoying, isn’t it?
While my writing has come in spits and spurts over the years, I’ve managed to stay pretty consistent with reading. I’ve tried all kinds of books at this point, from chic-lit to high-brow literary fiction. What I’ve learned: I love a romp. I love an adventure. Give me strong characters, a ‘found family’ theme and a bit of light fantasy/sci-fi/supernatural sprinkled in, and I’m sold. Those are the kinds of stories I enjoy, and the kinds I want to write.
In 2023, I set myself a goal - to write a story and actually finish it. It didn’t have to be good, just finished. And after 18 months of plugging away at it in the background, by the time last Christmas rolled around, I’d done it! I never planned on sharing the story itself - it was always intended to be more of an exercise that I could learn from and apply forwards, to projects that I could share with interested friends (shout out to my friend and writing partner, Catherine). And boy, I learnt a lot from the process.
So, I thought I’d share some of these tidbits – in part to remind me of them, but also in case it helps any other aspiring writers.
Non-expert writing tips
I like to think of writing a story like building a house – you start with the bare bones structure (draft one) and it looks bad at first. Editing is adding layers and layers of paint and finishing touches to create something tangible and special. For me, editing is way more fun than early drafting, which can feel hard and clunky.
Some stories work, and others just don’t. It’s important to know when to quit.
Some people are planners, others are ‘pantsers’ (i.e. they do no planning at all). There’s no right way to do it, but I think planning out your plot beats/structure can save A LOT of time in editing. A lot of the depth and details you discover through the writing process itself and can’t be planned for upfront (at least in my case).
You can finish a book by writing a little every day – even if it’s just 10 words. It took me 18 months, but I got to 60,000 words eventually.
Writing always takes WAY more time and mental energy than I think it will. I write best on weekend mornings and worst after work, when my brain just wants to quit. It helps to experiment and figure out what works for you and your brain.
Writing flowstate is one of the best feelings ever – it happened for me a lot during the late-stage editing process and feels like pure creative energy.
Scene/narrative transitions and dialogue are HARD. I think this is a personal thing – my friend finds dialogue really easy, for example.
Showing someone your writing feels like baring your literal soul for some reason.
It took me way too long to figure out that you can build ‘mood’ by using similar-themed words throughout a scene.
Often, less description is more. Being brief and specific goes a long way.
Get to the inciting incident as quickly as possible! I find myself spending too long on set-up before diving into the action. Readers get bored easily (speaking from experience).
A helpful tip I received is, as well as the classic positive/negative traits, goal and conflict, give your character an event in their RECENT past and an event in their DISTANT past. This gives you more to work with when writing interactions with other characters. Differences in these things are what create chemistry. The characters will probably be a bit flat at first until you’ve had a chance to layer them through editing.
The middle part of a story is tough because it involves weaving various threads together and can get messy. The first act is set up, and the third act is the ‘all is lost’ moment and the payoff of all those threads you’ve been weaving.
Annoyingly, you can’t control when inspiration strikes. I have dry spells for years sometimes. I tell myself I can practise writing until then, though.
Every scene and dialogue should be ‘going somewhere’ – reveal something about the characters, have an emotionally intense moment, or move the plot forward.
A lot of writing feels like problem solving. I do my best thinking on long bus or train journeys, staring out of the window and letting my imagination do its thing.
While I haven’t really written any fiction for about 9 months now, I’m hoping to get back into it over this winter and next year. Even if it’s just random drabbles, it’s all practice. That’s something I want to be better at – practising writing for the sake of it, without the expectation that I’ll become the next JK Rowling. At the end of the day, you have to write for yourself :)