Crafting an original work of fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction takes time, practice, and persistence. While there’s no exact science to creative writing, the following tips will help you get started:
1 Write about what you know
Beginning writers always get told ‘write
what you know’, but it’s good advice. Use settings, characters, background, and language that
you’re already familiar with and create new stories from the world that you
already know. This is like using research you’ve already done. And remember,
your background, what you bring
to the act of writing, is as valid as what anyone else can bring.
2 Write about what you don’t know
Use your imagination to
create new situations, new characters, new relationships, even new worlds.
Choose to write about a different period in history, or a place that you’re not
familiar with. Where your imagination needs help, fill in the gaps with research. The best thing about being a creative writer
is creating.
3 Read widely and well
Writers love reading. Make yourself
familiar with thepublished landscape
of writing in your chosen field, whether it’s modern poetry, literary fiction, thrillers, short stories, or fantasy. Nothing encourages good writing like reading
good writing.
4 Hook your readers
Nobody is forced to read your novel or
short story, so it’s important to hook readers
right away. Your opening sentence or paragraph should encourage them to
continue, perhaps by making them laugh, or exciting theircuriosity, or just making them want to find out what
happens next.
Consider the intriguing sting in the tale of
the opening sentence of George Orwell’s 1984:
It was a bright cold day in April, and the
clocks were striking thirteen.
It seems like a very traditional
opening and then -thirteen? You want
to know more and so you read on.
Now look at the first sentence of Raymond Carver’s short story Viewfinder:
A man without hands came to the door to sell
me a photograph of my house.
Just a short sentence but with so much that we need to have
explained. We’re hooked.
5 Get your characters talking
We find out about the people we meet
through what they say to us, how they say it, their choice of words, theiraccents, their verbal habits.
Readers should be able to do the same with fictional characters. People on the
page really start to live when they start exchanging dialogue.
Writing dialogue needs a lot of work -
making it fresh andauthentic, editing repeatedly to get it right – but
it’s worth the effort.
6 Show rather than tell
Too much description, too many adjectives and adverbs, can slow
up your narrative and
cause your readers to lose interest. Where possible, it’s better to show you readers what a person, the atmosphere in
the room, the relationship between your characters is like - show, that is, by
what they say, how they interact, what they do. It’s more effective than telling the reader through wordy piles
of information.
This is a tricky one. You have to do some telling so it’s important not to
become obsessive about avoiding it.
7 Get it right first time
Try to get your first draft as
near perfect as possible. Few writers manage this kind of quality the first
time but no one ever wrote great literature by
aiming low. On the contrary, aim for the best and do your best from the very start.
8 Keep polishing
If you don’t get it right first time, you can do
what most writers do – polish and
perfect through the editingprocess. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that
editing is the same as proofreading; it’s about much more than correcting
errors. Rather, editing involves carefully going through your work to see what
to leave out, what to change, finding out what you have to do to improve your
writing, make it sharper, tidier, better.
Editing can be hard work. It’s said
that Ernest Hemingwaytook the last page of A
Farewell to Arms through
nearly 40 drafts, so don’t give up if you feel you’re getting nowhere.
9 Make the most of your opportunities
Many aspiring writers
claim they simply don’t have the time to make the most of their ideas. Yet, if
you analyse a typical day, there are always those intervals – using public
transport, waiting for a friend, time spent in the waiting room of the doctor
or dentist – when it’s possible to pull out a writing pad, a laptop, a tablet
and just write. Identify your opportunities –
five minutes is enough to get a few sentences down – and use them.
But most of all, enjoy your writing!
Thanks to OED for these tips.
Douglas
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