Every novelist has a unique process. A certain breed of writer can write a novel in fifteen or thirty days, some taking part in NaNoWriMo. It’s not something I’ve tried, but, time permitting, I want to in the future. It’s a good way to get down a solid first draft, writing freely without time to…
How to Edit Well: 14 Micro Editing Tips.
Here’s an editing cheat sheet. I’ve used it for almost ten years since the most influential teacher of my life handed it to me. In ‘The best writing advice anyone has given me‘ and ‘Should writers worry about offending readers,’ I shared advice from Carl Tighe and Moy McCrory. But it was Adrian Buckner, another…
Natalie Goldberg’s First Thoughts.
In a previous post, What you must know before you start writing, I mentioned Natalie Goldberg’s First Thoughts writing experiment from Writing Down the Bones. I wrote about it as an opportunity to give your imagination the chance to surprise you, as a way to overcome writer’s block. And I explored the idea of incorporating the…
How to write well: what’s your point?
What point are you making? And how much do you want to cover? The writer should work with these two questions throughout the entire writing process. Too many try to cover everything, attempting to write the definitive piece. But there will never be a definitive anything. As a writer, you don’t write to explain or…
Who are you writing for?
There’s only one answer to the question ‘Who you are writing for?’ and that’s yourself. You write in a language and style that you know, and you create something that you would love to read. You write what you know, and you write for yourself. So why all the writing advice? What’s that all about?…
Be Succinct in your Writing.
Your writing is more cluttered than you realise. Mine, too. I know because I see it every time I read through and edit. When working through our first and second drafts, be on the lookout for everything that doesn’t need to be there. Be succinct in your writing, focus on one flower instead of the entire…
Does writing advice work?
Through my studies, work experience, and social exchanges with writers (online and real life) I can say with certainty that we are all quite different from one another. I recognize our differences, but I also see what connects us, and nothing highlights this better than how we respond to the question, ‘Does writing advice work?’…
What is Iambic Pentameter? (what every writer must know)
The first thing I want to say here is that, on some level, every English speaker is already familiar with iambic meter. There’s a reason that great poets have used it for centuries. It’s natural and human. The tones and rhythm resemble our everyday speaking voice, so you could find yourself speaking in iambic meter,…
How do you know your novel is complete?
The question ‘How do you know your novel is complete?’ is one I’m dealing with right now. Since the publication of my first in 2015, I’ve been working on a follow-up. To the frustration of the readers who enjoy my work, I’ve finished novels only to abandon them, because they weren’t better than The Little…
Can Poetry be Taught?
I enrolled on a Creative Writing degree with a passion for poetry, several full notebooks of practice, and the hope that the place would show me how to become a poet. I knew it would take work, and I also knew that not everyone could learn. If a student didn’t already have some kind of…