So, while I work on editing the second draft of Changeling’s Fealty and writing an outline before the deadline agreed with my agent hits, I’m going to take a few minutes to write things I think are helpful to being a writer and becoming a better writer.
1. Write. It seems simple, but its very easy to talk about your amazing story idea… and never do anything with it.
2. Read. Never stop reading. Fiction, for enjoyment and to learn style tricks. Non-fiction, for information, for education. I am an information-o-phile, sadly my life doesn’t allow me enough to learn as much as I would really like to.
3. Write. Someone once said you will write a million words of crap before you write anything worthwhile. False starts, school writing assignments,articles, short stories… all of these count, but only by writing something do you get better.
4. Engage in co-operative storytelling. My preferred method is table-top roleplaying games. Running or playing an RPG, you are creating a co-operative story with other people, it will never turn out the way you expect. The twists and turns that arrive are useful to remember, to use in your stories.
5. WRITE. If you do not write, you are not a writer. All your practice and thoughts only serve a purpose if you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
6. Plot aloud. Drives my cat cats nuts, but I wander around my house with music playing working through stories with only myself to hear. Climactic scenes are worked out in detail aloud months before they’re written. Story arcs are woven aloud – if I don’t say it, I don’t always realize how dumb it actually is!
7. Keep writing. Writers block can be overcome. Writer’s stickiness or writer’s apathy are almost as bad as complete blocks. Forge through them. The bits that are written on the bad days WILL require more re-work later – but the story moves on, and it helps to get some more words out.
8. Edit. Dear Gods, edit. None of us are perfect. We all require copy proofers – I still remember the David Weber novel that made it to hardcover print referring to the “bridge being at the center of ass” of the ship. Re-reading your work and editing you will see sentences that could be phrased differently, scenes that can be added, sequences that can be deleted.
9. Accept criticism. See 8. We are not perfect. I am not perfect. You are not perfect. You will not produce America’s Next Great Novel on your first try – and even if you do, twenty bucks says you misused there/their/they’re at some point. If someone has volunteered to read your novel, they are not your enemey – they are, in fact, your new best friend. It hurts to see someone rip chunks out of your baby – but your book is better for listening – and you’re a better writer for it too!
10. Give critcism. The best way to learn what to look for in your own work is to volunteer to help edit someone else’s. I am honestly one of the worst editors in the world, so I don’t do this very often – but said lack of ability impacts my own later drafts.
11. Write down ideas. The odds are you have more ideas to write than you have the time to write novels. Write them down. Sketch out an outline. Write a short story that encapsulates the themes of the idea. If you have an idea for a theme and a universe, but aren’t sure how to turn it into whatever your preferred format is (100-110k novels for me), write something else – write a short story. Write a screenplay. Write poetry, if that helps you shape the universe in your head.
12. Write. I cannot belabour or harp on this point enough. If you do not write, you cannot edit. If you do not write, you cannot practice. If you do not write, you can not give a better form to ideas. If you do not write, you are not a writer.
13. Change things! Never be afraid to go back and change things. When writing Changeling’s Fealty, the structure of the inhuman world, and the higher levels of the Fae ‘government’ structure change d dramatically in my head over the course of the book. Unless I’ve goofed on my edits, no one will ever know! Ideas evolve. Ideas change. You have better ideas – and they fit with what you’ve done, but require you to change something. Change it. No book is set in stone until you’ve signed on the dotted line.
14. Ask for help! See 8 and 9 – you wrote the book. You will often see what should be in a sentence, not what should be. You will see scenes and actions through the lens of knowing everything around it – but you may not have put all that information in the book! First readers and editors of every stripe are your best friends, and you should recruit as many as you can.
15. Don’t take any one person’s opinion as gospel – including your own! If one of your editors comes back with a suggestion you don’t agree with – don’t use it! It’s your novel, after all, they’re helping you, not giving ultimatums. If four or five or all of your editors come back with the same suggestion, and you don’t agree with it… it’s time to accept you’re probably wrong and want to rethink your opposition to the suggestion.
16. WRITE. Enjoy it. Let your characters and your keyboard take you away on fantastic journeys and shape new worlds. Only if you enjoy it is the whole thing worthwhile.
Namaste,
Glynn Stewart
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