Writing Tips

Lately, I decided to take a closer look at my subscriptions. As writers, we all know just how valuable our time is.

A study by RescueTime shows that people spend an average of over three hours a day glued to their phones, with a good chunk of that going to entertainment platforms like Netflix.

But if we’re serious about improving our craft, we’ve got to be more intentional about how we spend that time.

So, I made a shift.

Instead of endlessly binge-watching shows, I switched to subscriptions that actually help sharpen my writing skills. Here are five I think are totally worth it:

Taking a bit of a breather, here's the next exercise!

Random Prompt: Frying pan

Here is your task:

#Write a piece as to be unsatisfying as possible.

Some tips:

• The goal of this is to practice build tension, even if there's no way to satisfying release it.

• Focus more on the how/now than the payoff later.

You don’t have to post your piece, but if you do, I’m happy to provide some basic feedback. I encourage others to do the same, so we can all learn from each other.

Bonus: If there’s a particular thing you want to work on, let me know in the comments, & I’ll see if I can tailor future tasks to accommodate our needs.

Continueing on in the spirit of self improvement, here's the next self help exercise!

Random Prompt: Surfing dinosaur

Here is your task:

#Write a three (or more) person conversation without any dialogue tags.

Some tips:

• If giving each speaker a distinct/unique voice is too hard, try giving them unique tone, or positions instead.
• Alternatively, start with dialogue tags, then remove them in the edit.

You don't have to post your piece, but if you do, I'm happy to provide some basic feedback. I encourage others to do the same, so we can all learn from each other.

Bonus: If there's a particular thing you want to work on, let me know in the comments, & I'll see if I can tailor future tasks to accommodate our needs.

You have two weeks until the next task. (If you're not done by then, don't worry, I'll keep checking old threads.)

A great resource from one of the most successful authors, I would highly recommend anyone writing fiction to watch. It's a long listen, and some parts are focused on sci/fantasy, but it's one of the most useful writing tips on the internet regardless. There's even some publishing tips too.

In the spirit of self improvement, let's kick off a new community with a writing exercise!

Random Prompt: Backyard Scientist

Here is your task:

#Write a description (or scene) without any adjectives, or adverbs.

Some tips:

• Use stronger verbs
• Use specific names

You don't have to post your piece, but if you do, I'm happy to provide some basic feedback. I encourage others to do the same, so we can all learn from each other.

Bonus: If there's a particular thing you want to work on, let me know in the comments, & I'll see if I can tailor future tasks to accommodate our needs.

You have two weeks until the next task. (If you're not done by then, don't worry, I'll keep checking old threads.)

So a while back, on a bus ride to/from home, I wrote down a terrible piece of writing (linked)

Let's dive into why it was so bad.

1. It wastes the reader's time.

Multiple times in the piece, the same information is conveyed with no additional nuance, context, or subtext.

Repetition to emphasise a point is one thing, but doing it for no benefit is another.

2. It assumes the reader is dumb.

There's one especially guilty quote from the piece.

Bob had seen faces before.

Because humans are such good pattern-finding machines (as compared with actual computing machines), many explicit descriptions can be inferred from astoundingly little text.

Tom Scott has a great video on "the hidden rules of conversation", and one of the ponts he makes is the 'Maxim of Quantity' - Give as much information as required, and nothing more.

"Alice" & "Bob" are both common english names, and as such, we expect them to be normal english speaking humans, conversing on Earth, without any prompting. Any text that affirms that convention is unneccessary.

I would call this technique of bad writing 'exposing the subtext', but don't think it is universally bad. It could be useful in more complicated, longer works, if the reader is not expected to keep track of multiple (possibly changing & conflicting) POVs.

3. It tells us one thing, but shows the opposite.

She thought about it for an moment, and then shouted at Bob. Angrily. Very angrily. She said “Because my feelings are telling me to say this.”

Adverbs in general are bad because they tell instead of show, and 'very' is possibly the least desciptive adverb in the English language.

'Angrily' is the telling word here, but the pause before the actual shouting is showing us that Alice is not - anger is not an emotion that causes you to think further before acting.

Furthermore, her dialogue is not written in an angry tone. Good dialogue should convey the tone by itself, but in this case the anger only comes from "shouted" - another telling word. The tone itself is neutral - and therefore calm.

Feel free to discuss &/or tear it to pieces.

An old article I wrote