How to Become a Writer

Becoming Inspired

Discover your niche. The large field of creative writing splits into subcategories (fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction) and there are even specialized genres (sci-fi, mysteries, experimental… the list goes on). Figure out what you want to write. Write what you would want to read. Your best writing will spring forth from something that you, and maybe only you, are passionate about. No one can write the way you write. When your passion is injected into your writing, your readers will, in turn, be interested. Your passion for your writing project is a powerful tool that will serve well as a starting point. Remember that you don’t have to limit yourself to a single field. Many established writers spread out and explore—perhaps they write creative essays while publishing their creative non-fiction work. Maybe their short novels have poems inside of them. This field is so vast and interesting that you need to have a perfect taste for all of them. Don't stick to fiction, if you write fiction; you should also try non-fiction as well.

Find a routine that keeps you efficient and energized. Routine will help you. Establish a particular time of day, location, and atmosphere for your writing sessions. As you establish this routine, the creative side of your brain will become accustomed to working in these familiar conditions. Things to consider are… Noise: some writers enjoy absolute quiet. It's similar to a musician practicing music in silence. Others will listen to music to jog their creative juices. Others will want the company of friends to bounce ideas. Time: Some writers jot down thoughts just before they sleep. Early morning hours work well for others, as fewer people are awake to bother them. Other writers may enjoy being badgered, and therefore write in between coffee breaks or other work sessions. Other writers will like long periods of undisturbed writing time and dedicate their weekends to writing. Location: establishing a particular building, room, or even a chair can help the writing process. This familiarity will train your brain to work creatively, or technically, to suit your goals. Some places give us the power to write; strange but true!

Dedicate yourself to reading and expanding your mind. Reread the things you have enjoyed and study them—figure out what makes them effective, what makes them work. Try to understand the structure of your favorite poem, or the evolution of the characters in your favorite novel. Find a sentence that you think is great, and wonder—why did that author choose that phrase? This word? What would you have done if you were in his place? Do not limit yourself to single genres or fields. To truly enrich your writing experience, you must explore. You may not enjoy fantasy, but other people read and write fantasy for a reason. Read with this motto in mind: “I read to write. I read to learn. I read to be inspired.”

Explore the world around you to find new inspiration. Notice things. Pay attention to the world around you. Look for mysteries and try to solve them. If you have questions, pursue the answers with obsessive interest. Take special note of the quirky and unusual. When writing, having noticed things will help give you something to write about. Moreover, it can help make your writing more compelling, richer, and more realistic. Observation is a necessary thing. Here are some pointers that will help you explore the world around you: Nothing is ordinary or boring. There’s something odd or special about everyone and everything. Find what it is. There’s a mystery in front of you: a TV that won’t turn on, a bird that won’t fly. Figure out how things work, don’t work, and why. Pay attention to details. The leaves are not only green: they've got long, thin veins, rigid stems, and are shaped like spades. Change perspectives, and you'll learn. Nature is an amazing source of inspiration. Just walk outside and appreciate the outdoors for a couple of minutes to try to get some inspiration. If you have the means to travel, go somewhere that you've never been before and do something you've never done before, as that might also help inspire you.

Keep track of interesting thoughts and observations in a journal. Write down things that you notice or that inspire you. Take it everywhere you go. Some famous writers even went as far as to sew extra pockets into their jackets to carry more scraps of paper. Use this journal to produce ideas, take note of things you see, hear, or read, and flesh out your writing material. When you get stuck on your project, you can revisit it for inspiration. Understand that everything can go in your notebook because everything is a source of inspiration. Some useful things are: Dreams: a major source of the weird and unusual. Write it down before it disappears! Pictures: photographs and doodles Quotes: things people say, sentences that surprise you, short poems, the insides of a fortune cookie Judy Blume Judy Blume, Writer Draw inspiration from observation. "Observe. Make notes. Listen carefully. Listen to how people talk to one another. A good writer is always a people watcher."

Start your project. This is the most important part, and it can be very hard. Many of us stare blankly at the computer screen, with no words to write. Some call it “writer's block.” To help, here are some basic writing exercises that can help jog your creative juices and provide material for your project: Go somewhere busy, preferably a place with lots of people. Imagine that your vision of the scene is a video camera, recording everything. Take out your notebook and write down exactly what is happening. Include all the senses—sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Take a voice recorder and spy on a conversation. Don’t let the speakers know! Eavesdrop on their conversation. After you've recorded for an adequate amount of time, transcribe the conversation on paper. Play with the words—delete things, change things, add things. Create a new setting or a new situation. Create a character. What do they want? Fear? What is their secret? Who are they related to, and where do they live? What’s their last name…if they even have one? As early as you can, set writing goals and try your best to stick to them.

Commit to finishing your project. There are a billion half-novels in the world and a trillion half-short stories. Setting a goal and sticking to it, however unpleasant the work gets, is essential to figuring out what you want to write. By the time you finish whatever you set out to write in the first place, you’ll have three things: a good idea of what you want to write about some skill with which to write about it the tenacity to finish the job

Be a part of a community. Sharing ideas and getting feedback is one of the best ways to become inspired and improve your work. This can be scary for beginner writers, for your work can be something incredibly personal, and you may be afraid of rejection. However, writing in isolation means that not only is no one reading your work, but you can also run the risk of compounding bad habits (being too wordy, redundant, melodramatic, etc.). Instead of being scared, think that every person you share your work with is a potential person to give you new ideas and inspire you.

Address financial issues. Being a writer is almost like being a superhero: awkward office job by day… dragon-riding, super sleuth, a knight in armor WRITER by night. Some creative writers do not have day jobs—but this is very rare. However, having a day job is not a bad thing. A good day job can even be helpful to your goal of becoming a writer. When finding your dream day job, here are some things to consider: Does it pay the bills? A good day job should ease your financial burdens so you can write without worry. Stress is not conducive to your project. Does it leave you enough time and energy to write? A good day job should be easy enough on your energy level so that you’re not exhausted afterward. Does it provide a good “distraction”? Having a space away from your writing work can be helpful. Spending too much time on a single project can be overly immersive. It is good to take a step back, relax and stop overthinking. Does it have other creative people? A good day job should give you awesome coworkers. Creative people are everywhere! They are not just writers or artists.

Transforming Inspiration into Words

Arrest the reader. No, don’t put them in handcuffs! Immerse them in your work. Suck them into the writing so that they will read and read and never want to escape so that they will want you to handcuff them to your next book. To do this, here are some techniques you can use: The senses. We perceive and experience the world through our senses. An immersive and convincing work will often have readers seeing, touching, tasting, hearing, and smell. Concrete details. These types of details provide a specific sense of understanding of what is going on in the writing. Rather than generalizing an image—“she was pretty”—get specific: “She had long, golden braids, which were interwoven with daisies.”

Write what you know more about. If you are more familiar with something, you can write about it in more detail, realism, and depth. If you don’t know a detail that is important for your project, do research. Google it. Ask someone who knows. The more information you know about a situation, a person, or a setting, the more you will be able to render it realistically on the page.

Consider structure. Sometimes, the best way to write a story is “Linear Structure”: Beginning, Climax, and Resolution. However, there are many, many other ways to write a story. Consider “In Media Res”—when the story begins in the thick of things. Or, a story interspersed with multiple flashbacks. Choose your structure depending on your story’s progression.

Consider Point of View: In total, there are 9 different points of view. The 3 main categories are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Person. When deciding point of view, think about what information you want your readers to have access to. 1st POV: uses "I" involved – the narrator is an active player and teller of the story detached – the narrator is not telling their own story specifically, but maybe the story of a central character Plural (we) – a collective narrator, maybe a large group of people 2nd POV: uses "You" inverted, the narrator is referring to him or herself as the writer and perhaps dissociating themselves from distasteful thoughts/traits/memories You = a character, distinct with their unique qualities You = direct address to the reader You = reader is an active character in the story 3rd POV: uses a character name omniscient – narrator knows everything, has free reign in the story and complete authority, and can hurl judgments limited – this POV is missing something. It is like a window of vision that gets smaller and smaller as you become more limited single characters’ thoughts and feelings -- Harry Potter is limited to Harry's thoughts and feelings direct observer -- a narrator's telling of a situation, but cannot explicitly discern the emotions of the characters fly on the wall--the narrator is a spy, watching the situation from a distant perspective, but is not privy to everything for information is limited by the narrator's location on the wall

Nitty-Gritty Rules of Thumb

Write every day using simple words. When you are starting, try to write at least 300 words per day, so that you will improve your writing skill every single day. Moreover, simple is the best way to start. While you will undoubtedly need a well-stocked vocabulary (more on that later), too many big words will drive all but the most dedicated readers away. Start small. Don't hold onto a grandiose word just because it sounds fancy.

Stick with short sentences in the beginning. Short sentences are easy to digest and are very readable. That's not to say that you can't or shouldn't, write a long sentence every once in a while. It's just that simple sentences deliver information without stopping the reader in his or her tracks, stranding them on an island of befuddlement. Take a look at a notoriously long, overwrought sentence. The following sentence won the satirical Bad Writing Contest second prize. It's no secret why it qualifies as "bad writing." The sentence is caked in jargon, riddled with imprecise catchphrases, and is way too long: "If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to “normalize” formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality."

Let your verbs do the real work. Verbs are the great drivers of sentences. They carry meaning from one thought to the next. On top of that, they help writers achieve dazzling degrees of precision. Pay close attention to certain problem verbs. Verbs such as "did," "went," "saw," "felt," and "had," while occasionally appropriate, don't add any spice to your writing. Substitute a more specific word for problem verbs when appropriate: "accomplished," "skipped," "gazed," "experienced," and "secure" all communicate more specific ideas. Use the active voice instead of the passive voice, as a rule of thumb. Active voice: "The cat found her master." Here, the cat is doing the work, so to speak. She is actively finding her master. Passive voice: "The master is found by his cat." Here, the cat is more removed from the action. The master is being found; the cat isn't finding.

Be careful not to overuse adjectives. The beginning writer will go crazy with adjectives. There's nothing wrong with adjectives, except that they can sometimes be redundant and are often more obscure — and therefore harder to understand than other parts of speech. Don't feel like you need to include an adjective before every noun to describe the noun. Sometimes, adjectives are redundant. Take the sentence " I watched as he lifted the last pawn and set it down, checkmating the king, clinching his successful victory." What victory isn't successful? Here, the adjective simply restates what we already know. It doesn't add anything to help the reader comprehend what's going on. Other times, the adjectives writers use can be pretty obscure. "He is a puissant adversary" is a sentence that is neither accessible nor fitting. "Puissant" means powerful, and substituting "powerful" for "puissant" would have made the sentence both understandable and bearable.

Be a student of vocabulary. Keep a dictionary and thesaurus by your side at all times. Whenever you come across a word that you don't know, look it up. It's hard to call yourself a writer if you're not at least marginally interested in etymology. At the same time, use your vocabulary sparingly. Just because you know the words "defenestrate," "pyknic," and "agnomen" doesn't mean you should be finding excuses to use them. Study roots of words. Word roots (especially Latin roots for the English language) will help you decipher the meanings of unknown words without a dictionary. Knowing the roots mal-, ben-, epi-, EU-, ag-, and con- is a good start.

Say what you mean. It's tempting for people who use words for a living to use them a little loosely. Often, when we're stuck and we don't know which word to use, we wing it and write down a word that's "good enough." This strategy is useful and necessary in everyday conversation, but problematic in writing. For one, there's no social context. The writer can't use his or her hands to gesture, and can't rely on facial expressions to steer the conversation toward clarity. The reader is all alone and must rely solely on the words to gather meaning. Second, the reader takes what the writer says at face value. The reader doesn't expect to have to ask the writer whether she meant what she wrote; the reader assumes that the writer meant what she wrote. The writer doesn't clarify confusing words, which means that if you write down a confusing word, the reader is left confused. For these reasons, take the time to say what you mean. Figure out what you want to say before you say it. Be dogged about sniffing out the right word, even if it takes you time. A lot of sub-par writing is the refusal to fit the right word with an idea, not issues with plot or stylistic concerns.

Use figurative language for effect, not as a rule. Examples of figurative language are metaphor and simile. It's best to use metaphor and simile when you want to dramatize or draw the reader's attention to something specific. Like saying "I love you," figurative language loses much of its power if used incessantly.

Don't over-or under-use punctuation. Good punctuation is neither seen nor heard, but is powerful nonetheless. Underuse punctuation and your readers won't be able to understand the meaning of your sentences. "Let's eat, Mommy," and "Let's eat Mommy" have two very different meanings. Overuse punctuation and your readers will be distracted. No one wants to read a sentence in which colons, semicolons, and dashes make more appearances than actual words. Exclamation points. Use exclamation points sparingly. People don't often exclaim things; nor do sentences often merit exclamation. Elmore Leonard, the great crime writer, has this to say: "Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose." Semicolons. Semicolons act as hybrid periods, connecting two sentences that have a logical connection. Still, Kurt Vonnegut argues against them: "Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." Although Vonnegut's assessment might be a little harsh, it's probably only good to use them from time to time.

Once you've learned all the rules, break them. Don't be afraid to invert rules or play with them to achieve the sort of writing you want. Some of the greatest writers have successfully broken grammatical, stylistic, and semantic rules, making literature better by doing so. Know why you're breaking the rule in the first place, and understand its likely effect. But if you're not willing to take some risks, what are you doing calling yourself a writer?