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zannaleejoy-blog · 6 years

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15 Tips For ACTUALLY Writing ✍🏼

Disclaimer: Some of these tips are ones I’ve come across on social media and some are from my own personal experience and research. These tips don’t necessary apply to novel writing just really for any kind of creative writing such as: comics, fan fictions, essays, scripts, etc…

Tip #1 Reward Yourself

Working is a lot easier when you know there is something to gain from all that work. Whatever that may be. If you are someone who has an income and at least 20-100 dollars they can set aside. Pay yourself to write, for as many amount of pages, words, or scenes you write, pay yourself and use the money to buy yourself whatever it is your heart desires. And for those of you who don’t make much money instead- reward yourself with something you love to do. Maybe it’s playing video games for the rest of the day, or watching a YouTube video, or even taking a nap or just some time to yourself. Personally, I have a piggy bank that I put all spare money into and for every page I write at the end of the month I get that money. So if I write 15 pages in the whole month I’ve got 15 dollars to buy whatever it is I want, maybe more pencils or snacks!

Tip #2 Hold Yourself Accountable:

If you are someone who gets embarrassed easily or who has a lot of guilt find a family member or friend who can make sure you are writing. For example: If you let them know your word goal everyday is 100 words have them ask you about it and be honest with both them and yourself. Heck, a friend on the Internet or posting on your favorite social media platform your success or failure can go along way to make sure you stick to your goals. I tend to post how many words I write in a day on Twitter. My followers tend to congratulate me on my success and I like to have that positive reaction daily so I stick to meeting my goals.

Tip #3 Writing is Practice:

If you’re are scared that your writing is bad I can tell you first hand that not writing or being scared to write something bad is the worst thing you can do if you are fearful of sucking because you’re going to at least for a little while but the best part about humans is that if we were to do any one thing for days upon days we will inevitably get better at it. So if you write constantly than you are 100% guaranteed to get good. I have an old fan fiction that's been left on the Internet for years and I constantly go back to it to see my massive improvement and it excites me to think that I will continue to get even better.

Tip #4 Track Your Progress:

If you follow me on Twitter than you already know that I have a planner that has stickers for every 500 words I write in a day. I originally got this idea from Alexa Donne’s sticker method here on YouTube and have altered it slightly to fit my personal writing journey. I really like putting more stickers in my planner and it fulfills the child in me to see visually how much I’m achieving as well as I will purposely write more if I am close to receiving another sticker. Tally marks, or a spreadsheet on excel can also do wonders or anything that allows you to visually see your progress.

Tip #5 Set Low Low Word Counts:

On days that I feel shitty I usually only expect me to hit 250 words because I know on my worst day I can achieve that- Also if I hit 250 I am only halfway to my regular word count of 500 so I strongly advise setting something stupidly achieve able. 20 words? 50 words? You can write that! So do that and when you've got the hang of it build it up. Just understand that the smaller the word count the longer it'll take to write it.

Tip #6 Writing Sprints:

Writing Sprints are probably the only thing on this list I don’t practice mainly because time limits stress me out and I tend to work quickly anyway. However if you need that extra push or have very limited time to get some writing done than I encourage a writing sprint. 10 minutes to write 300 words? Or 20 minutes to write as much as you can. It prevents that critical side of you from coming out because like sonic you gotta go fast.

Tip #7 You’re Not Writing A Book:

Now for my aspiring authors like myself understand that you, especially if you are on your rough draft, are a long way from publication and that's drafting is just putting words on paper, bad words, good words, little notes of incoherent babble. It’s a mess and you are the only person who will ever have to see it. It’s a story and it’s like telling one verbally you are just trying to convey the general message it’s sloppy and you’re mumbling and stumbling and repeating and backtracking. But as long there is a complete story no matter how sucky it’s still complete.

Tip #8 Quantity is 10x’s Better Than Quality:

To add on to last point I suggest in prewriting and drafting to just put whatever the fuck comes to mind down. Especially in the prewriting phase when you are brainstorming and outlining just fit as many wild ideas as possible because in those times where nothing seems to be coming that will be your saving grace every single time. Because having too many ideas is better than none. When I was brainstorming I sat with my boyfriend when he was playing games and generated all kinds of ludicrous ideas but also came across a lot of awesome and happy accidents. You have to be brave and just dump whatever out and save it for later and dig through the trash.

Tip #9 Give Your Book Some Essence:

Your book has a certain feel that only you know this comes from playlists for scenes, characters, and plot- you've got aesthetic boards for your characters, maybe you have vines that remind you of your characters. Find those things and jot them down, put them in a folder or document and hold them close. I have Pinterest boards for my characters and settings. I’ve got playlists, and these things fuel my writing and creativity. I understand my book and I am reminded that no one can write it like me.

Tip #10 Nothing is Set In Stone:

Unless you are carving your book in a stone tablet or writing your book across the walls in sharpie than you can always go back, you can always fix and delete. We often rewrite from paper or go back into our word documents and mix things around. Write shit until you have the courage to fix it.

Tip #11 Write With A Person/Person(s) In Mind:

Writing for an audience is hard to envision for me, so instead I write for a person or a couple people in mind. Which falls in line with my writing, I’ve always written for people whether it be classmates, friends, or people on the Internet and soon when I write a book for everyone to read. Writing for me has always been about writing for others and getting through drafting and writing in general is trying to get reactions, laughs, and smiles out of my readers. If you write for someone who loves you then you will always feel comfort in pleasing them and that no matter what you write it doesn’t matter what others think because they will love it regardless. I often write for my boyfriend, mother, brother, and my best friend. The four people who are close to me and are guaranteed to enjoy my writing and I can guarantee that you too, have someone that will love what you write and you’ll want to please them.

Tip #12 Write For Children/ Write Silly:

If you feel like you have to write a story that needs to have complex prose and have subtleties and be nuanced which is nice and all but if you are struggling it’s okay to just write like you are writing for a young one, someone old enough to read but young enough to understand basic storytelling. And if writing once upon a time puts you in the mood to write more than all power to it. You can always delete that once upon a crap later. Just tell us the story. Hell I use to do this kind of stuff with outlining which was fucking hard for me at first when I was a hardcore pantser sometimes I would write really silly. For example, Henry eats food, and he falls dead, the village knows the food is bad, food is suspicious, main character Zora will find it out, it’s the storm the storm has ruined the food. Oh no! This is just a simple way for me to get many thoughts down and to easily expand and not feel like I need to write something perfect.

Tip #13 Write Dialogue First and Finish The Rest Later:

It’s pretty self explanatory but you need to just get dialogue done first. When I wrote Dragon Age fan fiction this is when I first used this. It was a sure fire way for me to get words on paper because Dragon Age’s dialogue is a big part of the dragon age experience if you aren’t already aware. I usually get distracted by dialogue tags and description and slows me down significantly so write all the dialogue and figure the other stuff later.

Tip #14 Surround Yourself With Positivity:

If you’ve got friends and family who support you like I am lucky enough to have people who support me, even if you don’t have people in your everyday life who support you then it’s a good idea to join a writing community whether it be on discord, Instagram, Twitter, whatever find your writer friends and hold them close because having some friends to cheer you on, support you, and fall back on does all the good.

Tip #15 Character and Setting Visual Stimuli:

Because I am horrible with description of people and setting I found that have pictures of my characters and settings is the easiest way to describe when I can see it somewhere other than in my head. I strongly suggest utilizing this because you also add on your own little things if the picture doesn’t fit entirely.

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