5 Fun Tips to be a More Writerly Writer

Real writers use a quill and wear glasses. Then they take pictures of them.

So, you think you’re a writer do you? I suppose you sit quietly at your desk, diligently knocking out 2,000 words a day, scouring the internet for tips to improve your prose? Pah! That’s not the way of the true writer. There are writers, and then there are writerly writers. Allow me to enlighten you…

1) Carry a notebook.

It should be leather-bound – the more expensive, the better. For maximum effect, wait until a friend is mid-way through a sentence, then whip it out and start making notes, laughing quietly to yourself. Then refuse to let them see, claiming that they wouldn’t understand.

2) Own at least 4 different colours of pen.

These are for editing. Red can be used to draw attention to plot inconsistencies. Green is for additions and amendments to the prose itself. Blue should draw attention to the sections where you deliberately missed out whole paragraphs to come back to later, then forgot about. Black has no special significance – it’s just black.

3) Work in the local cafe.

There is absolutely no point in being a writer unless everyone knows about it, so find a prominent public place and write there. Remember to invest in an oversized laptop with a particularly noisy keyboard, thump the table in consternation at the end of each sentence, and stare absent-mindedly at other patrons to freak them out. This is how most writers attract the attention of agents.

4) Wear a bow tie.

Another top tip to let everyone know you’re a writer is to wear a bow tie. Only writers wear bow ties – anyone wearing a bow tie who is not a writer is an impostor, and must have their bow tie confiscated on the spot. It is legal to do this. If you are uncomfortable wearing a bow tie in public, start slowly with a cravat and work your way up.

5) Get yourself all worked up.

The natural-born writer can only be truly creative when pacing up and down and ranting loudly to themselves, ideally under the heavy influence of coffee or alcohol – or both. Try to remember to write down some of the things you rant about for later use. Combine this with strategy 3 for maximum writer points. Top score!

Are you a writerly writer, or merely a writer? How many bow ties do you own? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

Image © Simon Howden

3 Ways to Survive the Twitter Tidal Wave

Twitter repeats itself – like a parrot. This is a parrot. See what I did there?

Image © Elwood W. McKay III

As I’ve mentioned numerous times, Twitter is an amazing resource for writers. In fact, it’s an amazing resource for any creative, any professional, or indeed any creative professional. Never before has so much up-to-the-minute, field-specific information and advice been so readily available.

That said, Twitter does have at least one major flaw – sometimes it’s just overwhelmingly big. Where once we had to seek out the elusive stream of writerly knowledge, we’re now bombarded by a continuous tidal wave of information. It’s easy to be swept away.

If you’re not completely turned off by the information overload, you may be giving yourself an aneurism trying to keep up with it all. I’ve suffered from both in the past, so here are three strategies I’ve come up with to make sense of it all.

1) Don’t click on every link you see.

I’m an unpublished writer. If, like me, you follow hoards of other writers, journalists, agents, publishers, and so forth, then you’ll be receiving a steady stream of fascinating blog links every second of the day.

The question is, how much of that information is useful to you right now? While it may be tempting for me to read up on techniques for writing agent queries, the fact is I’ve still got the better part of a novel left to write! Writing tips are the only thing that have practical value to me at present.

My advice is to only check out links that might be of practical use to you right now, or in the very near future. People will still be tweeting the other stuff when you’re ready for it. It’s not going anywhere.

2) Don’t repeat yourself.

The nature of Twitter and the blog-o-globe means that there are at least 50 people posting essentially identical advice, at least 50 times a day. But there’s no need for you to read it more than once. The cunning blogger will find creative new ways of presenting old information, but don’t be fooled!

If you see a link that appears to cover a topic you already know about, don’t be tempted to click on it just for the sake of self-assurance. There’s some security and satisfaction in being told what you already know, but don’t give in to the instinct – it’s a time waster.

3) Know when to stop.

I used to have Tweetdeck loaded in the background all day every day. Every few seconds a notification would appear with a potentially interesting link, and I’d instinctively check it out, just in case I risked missing out on the most important piece of writerly advice ever. I didn’t get much work done.

The whole point of Twitter is that it’s a never-ending stream of information. It’s not going to turn itself off. You have to do it.

Sometimes it can be tempting to give in to paranoia, and think that you’re going to miss that crucial piece of advice or information, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few months, it’s that Twitter repeats itself.

Yes, you may miss that information, but the good stuff never goes away. People retweet. Others incorporate the information into their blog post, and tweet the link. Weeks later, completely different people stumble across the blog posts, and tweet the links again.

Limit your Twitter use, and have faith that the truly useful links will find you.

Do you have difficulty surviving the Twitter tidal wave? Were these suggestions useful to you? Do you have any other advice for dealing with the information overload? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

3 Ways to Increase Your Writing Productivity

Coffee can increase productivity over short periods. It can also increase trips to the toilet.

Image © Idea go

So you want to increase your writing productivity, eh? Don’t we all! I’m not claiming to be an expert, but here are three tips and techniques that have helped me massively. Maybe they could help you too.

1) Get up at the crack of midnight.

Ok, maybe not midnight, but try to get up as early as you can manage without adversely affecting your sleep. Recently, I started going to bed around 9 or 10pm, and getting up at 5am. This gives me a few hours in the morning to do nothing but write, without worldly distractions.

For maximum effect, I recommend showering immediately to wake yourself up, and drinking copious amounts of coffee – but not a drop of caffeine from six-hours-to-bedtime onwards. You’ll need deep, perfect sleep to keep up the routine. And for those who have difficulty getting out of bed at the best of times, try putting your alarm on the other side of the room, so you have no choice but to leave the bed!

This is a harsh but rewarding regime.

2) Turn off Twitter!

So, you’ve cut out the distractions that you can’t normally control by writing in the middle of the night – what next? Well, that just leaves the distractions that you can control, mainly because they’re self-inflicted!

Twitter is the worst culprit here, but reading the news, checking up on your regular sites, anxiously clicking ‘refresh’ to view your latest blog traffic – these are all completely unnecessary activities that are not only eating into your writing time, but also putting you in entirely the wrong frame of mind.

And if you’re anything like me, then as soon as you start playing around in that browser window, you’re lost. Regardless of how much you struggle to focus on the writing, you will find some excuse to keep shifting back to the browser every few minutes. It’s a total productivity killer.

There’s only one solution – for those few hours that you’ve set aside to write, turn the clock back to 1989. No internet. Not one page. Not one tweet. You’ll thank yourself for it.

3) Do something you hate.

Well, maybe not something you hate – I wouldn’t necessarily try to force you into something horrendous! – but I genuinely believe it’s beneficial for any creative person to have something in their lives that they wish wasn’t. For you, it may be your menial job, the housework, or the weekly shop. For me, it’s my menial job, the housework, and the weekly shop.

I’m never more motivated to write than when there’s something unpleasant preventing me from doing it. That passion for not doing the hated activity can be translated into a passion for the writing.

For example, I’m paid not much more than minimum-wage – this means that my employer values a whole hour of my time at approximately the same level as the supermarket values a dead chicken.

My time is worth more than that. Your time is worth more than that. I’ll be writing as soon as I get home, in the impassioned knowledge that at least I am valuing my time appropriately.

Did you find these suggestions helpful? Have any of them worked for you? Got any better ideas?! Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

5 Writing Links of Awesome #1

Five links. Five die. Coincidence…?

Image © healingdream

Yip-yo! Welcome to the first entry of my regular Friday series, in which I offer up all the very best writerly linky-links I’ve accumulated from Twitter during the previous week. It really is an amazing source of information and advice. Behold:

The Ten Traits of a True Writer by Liz Kessler

If you think you’re too messy and disorganised to be a writer, think again. Liz tells it like it really is, and makes us all feel better – hurrah!

3 Tips – When Characters lose Character by Pam Parker

In redrafting my novel I found that the voice of Gwillum, my protagonist, was becoming somewhat generic. It can happen all too easily. Pam’s prompts could help you bring your characters back to life.

50 Problem Words and Phrases by Mark Nichol

A comprehensive list of all those common word misuses and misunderstandings. I’ve always considered myself to be flawless in this area, but even I learned a thing or two. An invaluable resource in your quest to avoid looking foolish.

40 Twitter Hashtags for Writers by Simon Kewin

If you want to discover more blog posts like these, then you really need to be investigating these hastags. If you want other people to discover you, then you need to be using them yourself. And if you’re not on Twitter, and don’t know what a hashtag is, then for god’s sake sort yourself out! How do you live?!

How to Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

Whether you’re a writer, or involved in any other kind of creative activity, this is without doubt the best article you’ll read this week. Encouraging, informative and entertaining. Trust me, you have to read it.

That’s all for this week. If you’re visiting my blog for the first time, why not check out the rest of this week’s posts, for more advice, suggestions and resources. The popular ones are listed off to the right.

Have a good weekend!

Writing – The Best Medium for the Creative Author

The world is in the palm of your hand. Be careful with it. If you think you’re going to sneeze, pass it to Bernard.

Image © Danilo Rizzuti

I’m a creative person, and always have been. If you’re reading this, you probably are too. I make no claims as to the quality of anything I’ve ever produced, but I’ve always been driven by an instinct and a passion to create. Ever since I was able to write and draw, and particularly since I was able to use a computer, I’ve been producing stories, poems, pictures, comic strips, animations, 3D characters, dioramas, and music.

At least 90% of the these things have been awful.

My mother liked them, but that was probably a given. Part of the trouble with trying to do everything is that you end up being good at nothing. I desperately needed wider recognition, and for that I needed to excel at something. I took a degree in computer game design.

It seemed perfect. I already had a million ideas for great games knocking around in my head. The course took my creative instincts, moulded them, and sharpened them. I understood the key creative principles and rules of the medium. I knew how to make a great game.

At least, I thought I did. After completing the course, it turned out that no-one wants to employ someone who knows all the principles, but has few practical skills. I’d been taught how to create 3D models, texture, and animate to an acceptable level, but acceptable isn’t good enough for a professional game studio – you have to be the best.

What I hadn’t realised while I was at university was that the people who were bound for success were focusing like laser-beams on the one element of game design that interested them, and becoming very, very good at it.

In retrospect, I don’t think this was ever going to be an option for me. Not only am I a total control-freak, but the creative impulse is too strong – if I can’t be the sole creative force behind a project, I at least need to have the biggest, loudest voice. People on creative teams tend not to appreciate that.

So it turns out that writing is a more perfect fit than I previously imagined. Why? Because I get full creative control, whilst having to be very, very good at only one thing – the writing.

Yes, I know we can break writing down into various subsets of skills, but as a single discipline it’s entirely possible for an individual to master. The same can’t be said for computer games or film – argue the merits of the auteur theory if you like, but writing is the benchmark against which all notions of the ‘auteur’ or ‘author’ must be measured.

Generally, most media production only allows you to be a single element of a much wider process. For some, that’s fine – they’re content to become masters of their particular domain. For others, that’s just not enough – they want to master the whole process, to become creators of whole worlds and everything in them, to set themselves above the gods.

For those people, writing is surely the only medium.

How do you make your creative voice heard? Is writing the only suitable medium for the lone author, or are there others? Why is writing the best fit for you? Click on ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

Writing Fiction – Do the Research (but don’t be constrained by it)

These headphones are conducting rigorous research – are you?

Image © healingdream

I recently finished the first draft of my novel, and I knew immediately it would need a lot of changes. I’d been constructing a unique fantasy world as I wrote, and the world I ended up with was a lot more complex than the one I started with – more complex, but not necessarily richer.

Mainly this was because I’d gradually created a culture based on the technologies of nuclear weaponry, opencast mining, and basketry, yet knew almost nothing about any of those topics. Thorough research was needed.

A good research plan, followed rigorously, can enrich your fiction – its settings, histories and characters – by adding background detail. Even if the things you learn never make it onto the page, having the information in your head will give you more confidence in the topics you’re addressing.

It may even be the case that you’ve totally misunderstood a subject, and you have to make major rewrites. Irritating, but better to find out after the first draft than when an agent or publisher takes it upon themselves to check up on these things! Don’t assume you know about something just because it featured in an episode of CSI!

At the other end of the spectrum, the research may open your eyes to so many new possibilities that your imagination is fired up all over again, and you can’t wait to make those rewrites. I’m delighted to report that this is exactly what happened to me.

One important thing to note is that research should enhance your writing, but not smother your creativity. Don’t give yourself so much research to do that there’s no time left for the actual writing – be tactical, and only choose topics that are central to your characters or setting.

Also, don’t feel that you have to cram all of the fascinating new information you discover onto the page. Only incorporate the information that’s relevant to the reader.

Most importantly, don’t aim for perfect realism at the expense of a good story. Rich, detailed fiction benefits from being grounded in some sense of reality, not from emulating it – that’s called a ‘textbook’ or ‘the news’!

Are you a writer? How much research do you generally do? Do you make a research plan? And how deeply does your research inform the finished product? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

Writing Fiction - The Rule of Three

In Britain, the middle hand is very rude. Except when Churchill does it. Then it isn’t. For some reason.

Image © arztsamui

It’s been suggested that, because humans are wired to look for patterns, and because three is the minimum number of anything required to form a pattern, we naturally find structures of three particularly satisfying.

They’re short. They’re punchy. They’re memorable.

This is why narratives are often comprised of three acts, why fairy tales often include groups of three talking animals, and why characters often succeed at something on the third attempt.

This structure is now so ingrained in the popular subconscious that people expect things to come in threes, even if they’re not actively aware of it. They’ll become confused and agitated, like lambs at a bestiality rave, if a character takes four attempts to succeed at a task, or if the story unexpectedly concludes at the end of the second act.

As writers, we need to use this information to our advantage. I wouldn’t recommend making every element of your story crop up in threes, because that would make it surreal and predictable (an unlikely combination, and certainly not a good one); just be aware of it.

Anything particularly significant should probably have a whiff of ‘threeness’ about it. Perhaps the hero only succeeds in killing the Dark Lord on their third encounter. Perhaps he (yes, fine – or ‘she’) must overcome three distinct barriers to reach the Dark Lord. Or perhaps the Dark Lord can only be killed by destroying the three component parts of his consciousness.

People expect it, like it, and remember it.

That said, you can also use your writerly knowledge of the ‘rule of three’ to work against the reader’s expectations, from time to time. Unexpectedly kill the Dark Lord on the second encounter, only for the reader to later discover that he’s transferred his dying essence into the hero’s mind, and must be battled one more time inside the hero’s own psyche.

Why not check your manuscript to see whether you’re working with the rule of three, or against it. I can’t honestly say it’s something I’ve had at the forefront of my mind whilst writing Gwillum Hobnail, so I’ll be looking out for it (or it’s absence) myself as I work on the second draft.

Do you use the rule of three? How closely do you follow it? Is it important, or just a load of old guff? Add a comment below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk