Writing Tip #1 - Read

A writer should be a reader. That's a simple fact, but it is true.

Reading good novels, stories and articles will help your style, especially if you read a lot and a variety of genres. You'll start to notice little things that you might not have noticed otherwise, like a specific wording that means something, while a slightly different wording could mean something else.

This mental exercise can also help you with genre for your novel. If you read books in the genre that you're writing in, you'll start to notice trends, or guidelines for that specific genre of book. For example, a romance novel is expected to at least have a first kiss, and in a dystopian, it's generally accepted that the hero (or heroine) shouldn't be permanently maimed over the course of the book. (This led to a rewrite on my part because Katelynn originally had her nose broken)

When you read lots of books, you'll find that your writing style starts to mature and get better over time. I don't even want to see the first stories I wrote, because they were just so bad. That's partly because I wrote almost every day for five years and part because I read almost as much. And not short books, or books I've read a thousand times (though there were a few of those). I read books that challenged me, that made me work to understand them. Books like George Orwell's Animal Farm, or Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. Reading books that challenge you will not only help you to mature as a writer, but you will also find that your thinking matures.

Last but not least, a writer should be a reader because that gives them a perfect opportunity to see what the competition is doing and then they know how to do the opposite, because going along with the crowd never led to anything good.

 

This is a rather short post, but I feel no guilt. Come back next week for writing tip number 2, which will probably end up being longer. It’s a juicy topic.