Advice for a First Time Author

Seek out and be prepared for blunt critical feedback. At this stage, anyone who says "It's great!" is of no use to you.

Post your writing in the workshop to identify the problems. You want to fail often and in every way. It's the only way you'll understand what not to do.

Read other people's works and the feedback along with it. You want to expose yourself to as many issues across as many elements of writing as you can. Tropes, clichés, mechanics, dialogue, pacing and so on.

Participate in discussions. Being able to ask for and get clarification on a certain point or issue is the greatest thing about belonging to a writing forum.

Welcome to the forums!

 

There's an old saying that the first million words you write are practice. In my experience, that is a significant understatement. Write, read, then write some more. Rinse. Repeat.

If you're hankering to write a novel but have never written anything longer than ten pages, I would suggest you get out your favorite novel in your chosen genre and re-read it - not as a reader looking for enjoyment, but as an apprentice seeking to learn the craft. Make notes on how the author does things. If the work is current, look at what the critics have said about it. Think what you would do. When you've finally gotten a few chapters written, check back with your favorite novel. How does your writing stack up? The goal here is not imitation, it's quality of craft.

Be careful in seeking critique. Before you post something in the workshop, make a mental note of whose comments you trust and whose you don't. Keep in mind that the vast majority of folks here are still in the "aspiring" category (myself included). Take our comments as you would those of a college or professional study group. We are mostly fellow students; not professors.

Welcome to the forums and best of luck in your writing endeavors.

 

Read a lot. Write a lot.

Doing those two things will do wonders.

 

write.
write without ceasing - without thinking - turn off the phone - turn off the tv - turn off the internet - turn off the hubby - and write.
keep writing through incoming texts, through dinner, through blackouts, through pencil point breakage. Through writer's block and boring
scenes and failures of logic.
Then ... look over what you've done - that's your first draft.
Start over again.

 

Start by reading the books listed in my sig.

 

I'm not exactly an expert either, but something that's been reinforced here is that writing isn't really about what do do so much as how to do it well. Many people have different things they want to write and like to read and it's up to you to decide what your goalposts are. Other can only tell you how to kick ball. (I'm going to keep using that analogy) Accept criticism a lot, but don't just do what someone else does. Listen for the actual tips and learn to filter them from what's actually more opinion.

 

British and Irish authors describe their writing day and methods. Have a look:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/my-writing-day

Also, something I wrote earlier. I think it is relevant to you;

1. Go into a room and write for about an hour, or about an hour and fifteen minutes five days a week.
When finished, leave.

2. Write short stories with a beginning, a middle and an end. They can be about anything - about an object in the room - about two mice falling off a step. It doesn't matter. Make it up.

3. Writing is a craft, then an art. Learn the craft first. They are like the walls of a house. The art is the roof. Write. The first couple hundred stories build writing muscle. Keep going.
(Writing muscle is laying down the necessary neural architecture. You become it. With time, patience and practice. Many authors are ex-journalists.)

4. Understand basic grammar.

5. Read good short story writers.

6. Lower your ambitions. It takes time.

7 . Cultivate patience. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

8. Make a commitment. It is unrealistic to be motivated every day.

9. Avoid distractions when writing.

10. Get the rent paid. Sort out your hierarchy of needs. If your situation is unstable, writing is difficult.

11. Don't let a sense of failure in writing leak into your sense of self.

And don't dwell on the past.

12. Write in good light. You will damage your eyes in time.

13. Stretch. Exercise. Writing will damage you if you let it.

14. Keep writing and the idea of being a writer separate. It is all about the activity.

15. Measure success by effort. Do your best. Therefore, it is always in your hands to succeed.
Do not base confidence on the belief in your own ability. Base it on doing your best. On effort.
On getting work done. Doing your best is different from achieving your best.

16. If you can, take the occasional holiday, or short break

best of luck.

 

The most helpful advice I received came from a professor in college. I was working as a reporter for the school newspaper, and he said that I should use verbs that require an object. Active verbs make the story better to read.

In addition, he said my writing style should be economical since a story can only take up so much space. Prioritizing information is key. Essentially, active verbs and prioritizing information are essential for a journalist. These rules can also be applied to writing fiction. What helpful advice have you received as a writer?

 

The advice he gave you will ensure that your writing is clear and concise, however don't skimp on details, they're needed to flesh out your stories and characters. The most useful advice I have received is very simple and something most writers should already know.
Your first draft will be shit, just get your story out and then rewrite, rewrite, rewrite!
For reasons beyond my understanding I am a perfectionist when it comes to my writing, I want it to be perfect the first time round. In no other aspect of my life am I like this and I think I need to have this advice painted across my walls, because I seldom follow it and I know I should otherwise I'll never finish a story. None-the-less, if a newbie writer asked me for one tip that would be it

 

Find a story you love and make it your own.

(that seems innocent, but it actually teaches you how to write).

 

The most helpful advice I ever received has basically become my motto.

"Read a lot, write a lot."

As someone who got stuck in long periods where I didn't write at all because I thought I had to find the "secret" to writing before I could start, this really was a good slap in the face.

 

1. Ignore advice from anyone whose writing goals are not very close to your own. For example, if you want to write like Cormac McCarthy, ignore advice from someone who wants to write like Elmore Leonard.

2. Ignore advice that is far too specific. For example, "Never use adverbs. Never use semicolons. Stick obsessively to three-act structure." Etc.

3. Ignore advice from people who don't know what they're talking about. For example, "Show, don't tell." Most people don't even know what showing and telling are. They think they do, but they don't. Or, "Avoid Mary Sues." Most people don't have a clear idea what a Mary Sue really is, or why she's a "bad" kind of character.

4. Just generally ignore advice. It tends to tighten your writing muscles into knots and keeps you from getting anything written. It can also make your writing experience pretty excruciating.

 

Have to add some little piece to the fourth point of @minstrel :

Ignore advice until you have an inkling of what the heck you are doing - and how to separate good advice from bad

 

Give up television for a while or limit it.
Read a lot of books
if your story is predictable then change something.

Those were the best words of wisdom i received.

 

1) Open your mind to the possibility that your writing has deep, deep flaws and that you have lots to learn. Embrace humility.
2) But remember that you and only you are the final judge of how the things that you learn should apply to your own writing.
3) One application of this is that when someone tells you "this doesn't work" they're probably right. When they tell you "this is how you should fix it" they're far more likely to be wrong, at least in anything beyond SPAG.

Edited to add: And, yes, this applies to me, when I give in to the temptation to rewrite somebody's piece in the Review Room. I always intend my edits to be a way of highlighting "this doesn't work" rather than telling anyone how to fix what's wrong. Even when I forget to say that. And even when I'm convinced, in an enthusiastic moment, that I do know how to fix it.

 

This is really wonderful advice. I don't watch TV, haven't for a while.

What I stopped doing that helped me to be more productive as a writer was deleting my social media accounts (Facebook).

 

It was hard for me, but I limited tv to 1 or 2 madmen episodes a week. I was amazed to find how many words I could write in one day.

 

It's really an incredible feeling. I read so much more, which makes me more inclined to write. Recently I've had a bit of a dry spell but that's probably due to some outside factors. It feels good to not watch TV or use much social media.

 

Movies and TV shows helped me just as much as literature.

 

I don't even know what this means.

 

If you haven't found any disagreements in the advice that you've collected, then you haven't collected enough advice yet. Keep looking for more until they start disagreeing

 

I scrolled down to write exactly the same thing. Can someone give examples?

I don't know what's the best advice I've had. I agree with @Lifeline that you shouldn't read advice articles or how-to-write books until you know what you're doing, by which time you can see how crap and flawed they are.

 

I disagree with some of these suggestions .. to a point.
I'd say read as many guides to how to write fiction as you can. Learn enough to understand the rules. Why they exist. Learn the purpose behind the rules. After you're done with that, cross out "rules" and consider them "guidelines."
Until you understand why 1000 writing guides tell you the same "rule", you won't know when it's appropriate to break them.

I haven't watched more than 10 hours of TV in the past year. Even less the year before.

 

I guess it depends on what you write. For me it doesn't help because i'm not reading anything that I could later put to use, whether its writing style or the way an author uses a word or something. Movie and tv take away time that I could have spent writing.