Advice for beginning writers

I decided to start a new series on writing. Being a beginning writer myself, I suppose it is a bit pompous of me to bestow advice on others, however, advice I shall impart.

Part one

After writing for some time, take a break—

• This works on two levels, first: there is no need to sit at a computer or note pad for eight hours writing straight. For goodness sakes, grab an energy bar or something. Step out of the room for fifteen minutes, an hour, whatever it takes to let your mind temporarily relax and not think about the characters’ next moves.

• The second level works if you have been working on a story for several weeks or months. STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER. If you’re working on a story day in and day out for 10 hours a day—no matter how fantastic it is—it is not worth you coming down with a neurological disease. Take a long break. I mean, there’s no need to completely move away, but by all means, go on vacation for a week or two. You need to let the story mull over on the page (or in your saved files) for a while; reset your goals, hopes, and dreams for the story, and let the characters have a few weeks rest from looking at your face constantly. You don’t think they get tired of looking at you? Believe me, they do. And they’re screaming for you to not make them accidentally shoot their half-brother or go snorkeling with sharks.

• There is another reason why taking a break is so helpful for you and your characters: it lets you rest your eyes from looking at the same sentences and same grammatical/spelling errors. If you give yourself a few weeks break, you will have fresh eyes to see your story with. Look back over what you have written carefully and revise the tiny errors you’ve made. I can say from first-hand experience how vital this step is. After a year, I re-read a story I had published and to my dismay, found it wrought with spelling and syntactical errors. This is an embarrassment to any writer no matter their success. A writer should take pride in their work as it displays the very best effort put forth by the author, but finding those errors made me cringe and hope that no one actually opens the book to read it.


(And a preview for next time....)

• Here’s another helpful tidbit—have someone else read your story through. But not only read it themselves, have them read it out loud to you so you know how it sounds and can make changes accordingly if it does not have the desired effect.