Honing Your Craft: Advice for Writing
by Merick Humbert
December 1, 2022
Can writing be learned/taught? It’s a question that has sparked plenty of debate, the answer being: yes, of course. No one is simply born with an innate ability to write. Anyone can learn and grow and get better. Now, can anyone be great? Of course not. That goes for anything. If you love it, do it. It’s as simple as that.
To write well—what is that? There are certain parameters that have been widely agreed upon, but in the end, much of it comes down to perspective. It is subjective, and anyway, what are the indications of quality writing? Is it sales? Is it critical adulation? Is it something else? What do you want out of your writing? These are questions that you should ask yourself. And then you must practice, and practice and practice some more. Writing is like any craft; it is something you must continuously refine and polish or it will grow stale. It takes time; it takes patience, and it takes plenty of rejection. These are things that you must accept. You must write because you love it and because you have something to say—not for what you hope it will bring you. Write what you would want to read. Here is some practical advice for writing fiction.
Read. You’ve heard it before, but there is nothing more helpful. Learn as much as you can.
“Read, read, read. Read everything— trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”
-William Faulkner
Break the rules, including these. There are always exceptions. Context and nuance are essential and beautiful. Take these tips with a grain of salt. Be wary of where you are getting your advice and information. Everyone is susceptible to persuasion and manipulation. If you think you are too smart to be influenced by forces outside of your control, you are wrong, and that mentality will actually increase your susceptibility. You shouldn’t agree with everything that anyone says. Think for yourself.
"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly."
-Franz Kafka
Don’t be overly descriptive. Descriptive language and imagery are some of the most essential aspects of any beautiful piece of fiction; you just have to be careful not to overdo it. Common writing advice is to limit your use of adverbs. Adverbs, like any other facet of language, can be useful and effective, but it is something to be cognizant of, and make sure not to overdo it.
Try to interweave descriptions within the natural flow of the narrative. Instead of listing it out at once, “he was tall and plump with brown eyes and brown hair that was long and curly. She was short and thin with green eyes and short blonde hair that was up in a…” and you’re bored already. Instead, mix it in as you move through the story, “almost a foot taller, he looked down into her bright blue eyes and said” or have a character comment on something: “your beard is getting long, Troy.” Give those details to the reader bit-by-bit, rather than listing them all out at once. Same thing goes for describing a room. We know a kitchen has a sink, refrigerator, stove, table, etc… Only tell us what’s important and give it to us within the natural flow of the story.
Also, be careful with your descriptions of gestures. Turning of heads, blinking, taking a sip of a drink, coughing, nodding, scratching, clearing the throat—we understand the desire to be descriptive and some of these things can be important and help the reader visualize the story, but too much will bore the reader to death. Tell them what’s important and keep the narrative moving.
Don’t open a story with an alarm going off, the protagonist getting out of bed, getting dressed, brushing their teeth, having breakfast, etc… We’ve seen it—a lot. Get to the story.
Don’t open a story with a dream sequence, or end a story saying it was all just a dream. Readers don’t like to start to feel invested in something only to find out it didn’t happen. For more, Google, “why not to open a story with a dream,” and you will find plenty of articles about it.
Be careful with rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions can be very useful to show confusion, neurosis, paranoia, etc… But they can also be overused, feel awkward and come across as patronizing to the reader. They are often implicit in the context of the moment, and they are sometimes a shortcut used to express a thought or emotion that would be better off expressed outright. It might take a little more effort, but you can find a better way to articulate the thought you are trying to make. Often, rhetorical questions can also easily be reworded into a statement by simply writing something like, “she wondered why….” and that will flow better with the story. You can also find plenty of articles on this with a quick Google search.
Be careful with slang and humor in serious moments. Slang and dialect are very effective ways to give a character personality in dialogue or in 1st-person narration. However, if you are using 3rd person narration it can feel strange and informal. It is also something that you definitely want to avoid in a serious moment of the story. If little Billy is dead in his casket, it might not be the time for a joke.
If there is a big twist at the end of the story, make sure everything that happened earlier still makes sense. Otherwise, you cheated.
Be careful with tense. Present-tense can be particularly tricky, as you will invariably shift to past-tense any time you refer to a memory or something that happened earlier in the story or in a character’s life. With that being said, it is important to remain consistent when you are working within the current moment of the story. If you are writing in present-tense, make sure you continue to do so throughout. Switching back and forth is distracting and confusing to the reader. Our recommendation would be for beginners to work with past-tense. It is much easier to get mixed up if you are using present.
Create complex characters. No one is all good, or all bad. There are reasons that people turn out the way they are, and why they want the things they want. It is the job of the writer to figure that out and present it to us. What happened in your character’s life that shaped them? What do they want and what is holding them back? That is the fundamental question. Read more about character development HERE.
"As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand."
-Ernest HemingwayKeep Writing! Practice, Practice, Practice!
Read, Read, Read!
"A word after a word after a word is power."
-Margaret Atwood