The Writer's Guide to Life
Being a writer is being open to the world at hand. There is a vast variety of potential, after all, in the everyday experiences you have and the things you come across. Anything can strike inspiration, and anything can give you that extra added push to finish a project or to fill in a hole in your plot. The writer’s life is full of imagination, creativity, and wonder, and it’s one of the best ways to view the world.
Knowing how not only to live more creatively but to channel the inspiration from the world around you is how you can become a better writer. Life is, after all, stranger than fiction, and following these tips can help you live your life to support your creative pursuits:
Knowing how not only to live more creatively but to channel the inspiration from the world around you is how you can become a better writer. Life is, after all, stranger than fiction, and following these tips can help you live your life to support your creative pursuits:
Read Non-Fiction
For writers, fiction books are a chance to delve into the creativity of other writers, and to learn from their narrative prowess and their character development. There is a wealth of knowledge to learn from other talented writers, and you should never stop reading fiction, whether it’s novels, poetry books, or short stories. What you should do, however, is to start to read non-fiction if you haven’t already.
Essays, books, and even audible versions like podcasts, videos, audiobooks, and documentaries should become a part of your daily routine. If you want to be a better writer you need to know more about how the world works, the human condition, and society. Only by knowing the world can you know what is possible and what the extent to how wonderful and horrible humanity can be. There are so many stories to be told in the world, and by learning every single day, you are exposed to a thousand different plotlines and backstories and settings to write in.
Learning about the world also allows you to create more realistic and human characters. You should never limit yourself to just what you know if you don’t want to. The power of creative writing is that it comes from your imagination. With that in mind, you also want to respectfully and accurately portray the things you don’t understand. Writing about a culture different than yours and getting everything wrong can be incredibly insulting and even ruin your career as a writer. Doing your research, visit the places you write about, and so on, so you can create a more vivid, enthralling story than you could ever have dreamed of writing.
There is so much to learn from life, which is what the writer should learn to excel at. No topic is off limits, and everything has learning value. The terrible job you had waitressing, or your experience being an extra in a popular TV series, and so on. Lead your life learning about the world and be open to all of its lessons, only then will your writing thrive.
Take More Pictures
In writing, you must convey what is in your head to your readers. However, it is universally considered a faux pas to ‘overwrite.’ This means using an excessive amount of adverbs and adjectives to describe one thing in hyper detail. Doing this typically takes the reader out of the story, and can be incredibly distracting as a result. Your reader doesn’t need an explicit description of your main character’s face; they will conjure up their own. You do need to set the tone though.
The description is a very complicated dance between stating what is there and implying what is there. To be successful, you want to be able to impress to your reader what the setting or the item in question looks like and how it feels in as few words as possible. Nailing this technique will take a lot of practice and even years, and the result is unique to every single writer, which is why every writer should start to take more pictures.
There are several reasons why all writers should practice their photography. The first is that having photos on hand will allow you to write a truer and accurate representation of a place. In fact, taking pictures (or even saving them from the Internet) of streets, apartments, café’s, and so on and using these photos as the basis for settings in your story can help you stay true to your story. Saying a couch is green in one chapter and then stating that it is red in another is an example of a lack of continuity.
The other reason all writers should take more photographs is that photography is the opposite of writing. It has all the description, but none of the narrative. Improving your photography skills means doing more than taking a good photo of something, it means conveying emotion and a moment through visual storytelling. As such, improving your photography skills can help you find new ways to tell a story that is implied more than stated. This can then translate into your written work, where ‘show don’t tell’ is the golden rule.
Then, of course, there is marketing. In this day and age, writers from all over can self-publish and create a community. Having this community can help them either become a success on their own, further the success of a published book, or even convince a publisher to take on your novel in the first place. Having great photos is key to achieving this success, but you certainly don’t need a DSLR to achieve this. Instead, all you need is to find the best deal for any of the newest phones from HandsetExpert.
Keep a Journal
Keeping a journal is something everyone should do. Memory is incredibly frail and having a series of journals that document your thoughts, and best memories is the only way to preserve them. For writers, journals offer so much more. You can document your dreams, and you can write down inspiration, overheard conversations, things you’ve learned throughout the day, etc. You can do this in a paper journal, but for convenience and ease of use, you should consider switching to your phone.
One of the things that many journalists don’t utilize enough is the diction power of their phone and even their computers. It is awkward at first to speak your thoughts aloud, but once you get used to it, you will find that it is a much faster and more efficient method that will help you stay consistent with your efforts. That way you can use the keyboard when you are out and about and don’t want anyone overhearing you, and then when you are at home alone, you can easily catch up on your day in a few minutes and have a digital, and searchable recollection of your thoughts.
Writing in a journal might be romantic, but if you find you cannot keep up with your daily findings and thoughts, you should consider switching. Not only will it save you money, but it will also save printed paper and potential hand cramping.
Try New Things
The introverted writer is a trope that we all know well, but that doesn’t mean you have to adhere to this stereotype in order to be a great writer. Getting out there and trying new things and having new experiences is what you need to write great stories. The only difficulty with living your life so vividly is that it leaves less room to live in your own head. It can mean your writing suffers and that you don’t get as much done.
The solution here is to turn your writing into a daily routine. Write at the same time, in the same setting, and write every single day. The first draft of anything does not matter. A story is arguably not about the writing at all, but how well you edit it later on. That’s why it doesn’t matter if you sit down and write 500 words only to delete it one day later, so long as you keep writing.
Do this, and you can juggle writing and living in your character’s world and living your life out in the real world. Master this balance well, and you can create more vivid, realistic characters and plots that alleviate your story to the next level.
Experiment
You will only learn by experimenting, so remember to have fun when you write. It is far too easy to get caught up in the notion of writing a “good” book that you forget to have fun while doing it. In fact, this fear and wish to write something that will forever be lauded as one of the greats can paralyze writers and leave works in products forever unfinished. There is no right or wrong way to circumvent this paralysis, but one tactic you can use as a writer is simply to experiment. Write one key scene from multiple perspectives. Be abstract. Have fun. Write your novel as many times as you need to. A true novel is one that has been edited many times, and no novel can be edited until it is first finished.
Writing should be fun. It should be something you enjoy doing, and the final product should be something you are proud of. Live your life more vividly, learn something every day, and keep an accurate record of all the things that inspire you, and you’ll find you will never run out of inspiration to write.
For writers, fiction books are a chance to delve into the creativity of other writers, and to learn from their narrative prowess and their character development. There is a wealth of knowledge to learn from other talented writers, and you should never stop reading fiction, whether it’s novels, poetry books, or short stories. What you should do, however, is to start to read non-fiction if you haven’t already.
Essays, books, and even audible versions like podcasts, videos, audiobooks, and documentaries should become a part of your daily routine. If you want to be a better writer you need to know more about how the world works, the human condition, and society. Only by knowing the world can you know what is possible and what the extent to how wonderful and horrible humanity can be. There are so many stories to be told in the world, and by learning every single day, you are exposed to a thousand different plotlines and backstories and settings to write in.
Learning about the world also allows you to create more realistic and human characters. You should never limit yourself to just what you know if you don’t want to. The power of creative writing is that it comes from your imagination. With that in mind, you also want to respectfully and accurately portray the things you don’t understand. Writing about a culture different than yours and getting everything wrong can be incredibly insulting and even ruin your career as a writer. Doing your research, visit the places you write about, and so on, so you can create a more vivid, enthralling story than you could ever have dreamed of writing.
There is so much to learn from life, which is what the writer should learn to excel at. No topic is off limits, and everything has learning value. The terrible job you had waitressing, or your experience being an extra in a popular TV series, and so on. Lead your life learning about the world and be open to all of its lessons, only then will your writing thrive.
Take More Pictures
In writing, you must convey what is in your head to your readers. However, it is universally considered a faux pas to ‘overwrite.’ This means using an excessive amount of adverbs and adjectives to describe one thing in hyper detail. Doing this typically takes the reader out of the story, and can be incredibly distracting as a result. Your reader doesn’t need an explicit description of your main character’s face; they will conjure up their own. You do need to set the tone though.
The description is a very complicated dance between stating what is there and implying what is there. To be successful, you want to be able to impress to your reader what the setting or the item in question looks like and how it feels in as few words as possible. Nailing this technique will take a lot of practice and even years, and the result is unique to every single writer, which is why every writer should start to take more pictures.
There are several reasons why all writers should practice their photography. The first is that having photos on hand will allow you to write a truer and accurate representation of a place. In fact, taking pictures (or even saving them from the Internet) of streets, apartments, café’s, and so on and using these photos as the basis for settings in your story can help you stay true to your story. Saying a couch is green in one chapter and then stating that it is red in another is an example of a lack of continuity.
The other reason all writers should take more photographs is that photography is the opposite of writing. It has all the description, but none of the narrative. Improving your photography skills means doing more than taking a good photo of something, it means conveying emotion and a moment through visual storytelling. As such, improving your photography skills can help you find new ways to tell a story that is implied more than stated. This can then translate into your written work, where ‘show don’t tell’ is the golden rule.
Then, of course, there is marketing. In this day and age, writers from all over can self-publish and create a community. Having this community can help them either become a success on their own, further the success of a published book, or even convince a publisher to take on your novel in the first place. Having great photos is key to achieving this success, but you certainly don’t need a DSLR to achieve this. Instead, all you need is to find the best deal for any of the newest phones from HandsetExpert.
Keep a Journal
Keeping a journal is something everyone should do. Memory is incredibly frail and having a series of journals that document your thoughts, and best memories is the only way to preserve them. For writers, journals offer so much more. You can document your dreams, and you can write down inspiration, overheard conversations, things you’ve learned throughout the day, etc. You can do this in a paper journal, but for convenience and ease of use, you should consider switching to your phone.
One of the things that many journalists don’t utilize enough is the diction power of their phone and even their computers. It is awkward at first to speak your thoughts aloud, but once you get used to it, you will find that it is a much faster and more efficient method that will help you stay consistent with your efforts. That way you can use the keyboard when you are out and about and don’t want anyone overhearing you, and then when you are at home alone, you can easily catch up on your day in a few minutes and have a digital, and searchable recollection of your thoughts.
Writing in a journal might be romantic, but if you find you cannot keep up with your daily findings and thoughts, you should consider switching. Not only will it save you money, but it will also save printed paper and potential hand cramping.
Try New Things
The introverted writer is a trope that we all know well, but that doesn’t mean you have to adhere to this stereotype in order to be a great writer. Getting out there and trying new things and having new experiences is what you need to write great stories. The only difficulty with living your life so vividly is that it leaves less room to live in your own head. It can mean your writing suffers and that you don’t get as much done.
The solution here is to turn your writing into a daily routine. Write at the same time, in the same setting, and write every single day. The first draft of anything does not matter. A story is arguably not about the writing at all, but how well you edit it later on. That’s why it doesn’t matter if you sit down and write 500 words only to delete it one day later, so long as you keep writing.
Do this, and you can juggle writing and living in your character’s world and living your life out in the real world. Master this balance well, and you can create more vivid, realistic characters and plots that alleviate your story to the next level.
Experiment
You will only learn by experimenting, so remember to have fun when you write. It is far too easy to get caught up in the notion of writing a “good” book that you forget to have fun while doing it. In fact, this fear and wish to write something that will forever be lauded as one of the greats can paralyze writers and leave works in products forever unfinished. There is no right or wrong way to circumvent this paralysis, but one tactic you can use as a writer is simply to experiment. Write one key scene from multiple perspectives. Be abstract. Have fun. Write your novel as many times as you need to. A true novel is one that has been edited many times, and no novel can be edited until it is first finished.
Writing should be fun. It should be something you enjoy doing, and the final product should be something you are proud of. Live your life more vividly, learn something every day, and keep an accurate record of all the things that inspire you, and you’ll find you will never run out of inspiration to write.