Unorthodox Writing Tips
These are not your typical writing tips, but I hope that they will help spur you on towards greater creative fulfillments and success.
1. Ask Yourself the Tough Questions
What are you most passionate about?
What experiences of your life have changed you the most?
Why would someone else benefit from your story?
What dreams or fantasies do you wish you could experience?
When you start answering these questions, then you will begin to discover the type of writing that you are most passionate about because it comes from a very personal area of your life.
“Fiction that isn’t an author’s personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money.” –Jonathan Franzen
2. Get in the Zone
There are numerous distractions in life—social media, emails, TV, iPad, and countless commitments. But if you want to truly be a writer and artist, you have to create the environment for your imagination to come alive and to be separate from your daily life.
I try to work daily at my desk, but if there are too many distractions at my desk or I hit a creative roadblock, then I mix it up a bit and go outside or go to a new environment that sparks my creativity.
3. The Daily Commitment
The best piece of advice someone gave me as a young pianist was to make sure I always touched the piano, even if it was just touching the ivory keys. The same goes for anything you want to create or accomplish—you must touch it, feel it or work on it at least once a day.
As a writer and a mom, it’s hard for me to find time to write every single day because I have a screaming toddler, laundry haunting me from every room and countless errands to run, but I try to open my computer at least once a day and read my notes or type for half an hour. Whether it’s profound or gibberish, the simple act of writing will help me to continue blossoming as a writer and develop the depth of my storytelling.
4. The Beat is Your Best Friend
As a journalist, I had never learned scriptwriting in school, but with a husband who works in entertainment I quickly learned the power of the BEAT. The beat is the timing and movement of a film or play; it is also crucial in developing a book that has momentum and does not bore the reader. Using the beat structure is one of the keys to writing an excellent book and this is the structure: Learn more here for short-form novellas beat structure.
Decision
Event
Decision
Discovery
5. Plan the Ending with Change
I have read various articles with writing tips from some of the best authors in the world and many of them suggest not writing down the ending of the book beforehand, but in my own personal experience as a writer I find that the ending of my book is the one thing that pushes me to keep writing. I can’t wait for the reader to discover what I already know! The ending may change a little bit depending on the development of the characters and the story, but for the most part I try to keep it as the “mecca” of the mind that I want to attain for the reader.
6. Read
Read other novels and books, whether they are in the same genre of your book or not, just the exercise of reading actually expands your thoughts and shows you various writing styles and structures. All of this is useful in writing your own manuscript.
7. Read Your Manuscript Aloud
I am my biggest critic. When I read my manuscript aloud, I listen to the rhythm of the sentence structure. If I have to take too many breaths in a sentence, then something needs to be taken out. I also read aloud to my husband and ask him to tell me if there are any parts that seem confusing or too vague.
8. First Readers
Develop a list of people in your life whom you would consider your “first readers”. Talk with them in advance about your book and politely ask them if they would consider reading your manuscript to give you honest feedback. Try to vary the list demographically and with people who are not afraid to give you their sincere questions and thoughts.
9. Action Over Dialogue
I am a talker and one of the most difficult things for me to do is utilize action to convey the message of my writing more than dialogue. Characters need to show their emotions, their decisions and their reactions, not bore the reader with paragraphs of dialogue. Use dialogue for the most important words of the book.
For example, my main character Jesse in my book “Broadway Girls” moves from her family farm to the monstrous metropolis of New York City. She feels frightened, overwhelmed and intimidated by her surroundings and it is my job as the author to describe the environment and her emotions to my reader.
“Thoughts of home swirled through her mind as she sat on the crowded subway car absorbing all the aromas of New York City. It was definitely a different environment from small Springfield. Instead of the invigorating smell of fresh cut grass, she only received whiffs of urine that had soaked into crusted old jeans and body odor that had not touched a drop of water in weeks. She politely looked at the floor so as not to make eye contact with the other passengers. It took every ounce of self-control not to vomit her breakfast; instead, she placed a napkin drenched with hand sanitizer on her nose.” (Chapter One, Broadway Girls)
10. Roadblock Recharge
When you hit your mental roadblocks, as every writer does, take a short break from writing and recharge your creativity. Read a book, watch a documentary or play a musical instrument; anything that will fuel your creative energy and rest your nerves. A rested mind is a garden of creativity springing up with new ideas.
~ Follow my video blog on Instagram (@jencapunitan) to get her daily tips and insight about developing stories, novels and successful writing projects.
