At the turn of the year, many storytellers are looking to improve their writing habits for the new year. Whether you’re trying to finish your first book or improve your writing productivity, we take a look at the must-have skills for successful authors.
Learn to Love Research
In other words: educate yourself on your subject or genre. Having a strong knowledge base is key to building trust with readers. This may seem obvious for non-fiction, where an author presents themselves as an expert, but the same rule applies to fiction. While convention can be skirted in things like fantasy or sci-fi, rooting your work in some elements of reality helps keep the reader from getting lost in the unknown—and keeps you from having to explain every minor detail.
Revise and Rewrite
The hard truth is that no manuscript is perfect after the first draft, or even the second or third. As much as you may want to pass it along to an editor, you’re doing yourself (and your editor!) a disservice if you don’t self-edit first. Reviewing your own work gives you the opportunity to add polish where it may have been lacking. Or, in more extreme cases: overhaul entire portions of the story itself. If nothing else, going back and catching spelling and grammatical errors will save you the embarrassment of all that mark-up. Remember: no editor can bring a level one manuscript to a ten—you’re better off making sure it’s as clean as possible before handing it off. Doing so will allow the editor to see the work for what it is and provide more meaningful feedback!
Don’t Overanalyze
Don’t sweat the little stuff. As important as revising and rewriting are, the pressure of getting it “right” can be paralyzing. We want our first draft to be as good as the edited-and-revised final products lining bookshelves and end up agonizing over minor details. This can be especially true for writers who self-edit as they go; pausing every so often to re-read and tweak the last few pages or paragraphs. While it’s understandable to want your work to be perfect, tunnel vision can leave you missing the forest for the trees. Let go a little. Revisit and revise, but don’t get so lost in the process you can’t find your way out of it.
If you find yourself scrutinizing each sentence, make a commitment to not re-read or revise until you’re done with the project, or, if you must, the chapter. Too much nitpicking your own work can make you see problems where there really are none.
Set Small, Achievable Goals
Whether it’s a weekly word count, a set amount of writing time , or writing for a consecutive number of days, it’s easy to find yourself trying to go from zero to one hundred. Unfortunately, it’s just not sustainable. Like every skill, growth and ability take both time and incremental progress. The truth is if you haven’t already been writing on a regular schedule, it’s going to be uncomfortable at first—so there’s no need to make it excruciating by piling on a huge workload. You wouldn’t start at the gym by lifting the heaviest weights, so don’t try to grow your creative energy by grinding it into dust! Take it easy on yourself, you’ll know when you have the extra bandwidth to push for more.
Take Care of Yourself
You probably thought you weren’t going to be told to eat your vegetables and get good sleep here. Turns out, taking care of your wellbeing is an important part of taking care of your creativity. There’s no way around it: the rest of your life suffers when you feel crummy all the time. How can you be expected to create anything if you’re feeling too rundown to make it happen? Although we often feel the need to push through, it’s important to make sure that your basic needs are being met before you try to meet creative demands. Something as minor as losing a few hours of sleep or too much inactivity can drastically alter your frame of mind and hinder your ability to create.
Watch Films and Television
No, we’re not trying to make up for telling you to eat your greens. We actually mean it! We’re in an exciting age of storytelling, and that isn’t only true for print. Many novelists have made the leap to writing for the screen so some great stories are happening there. While writing for the page is different, many of the same storytelling tactics translate to the written word. So kick back from all that taking care of yourself and refill the creative well.
Expand Your Knowledge Base
When not working through your Netflix queue, you can—and should—make a point to expand your understanding of your craft. Research writing technique, read books, join writing groups, or any other creative self-development. Finding ways to continue your education keeps you consistently engaged and constantly improving.
Shut Out Outside Influences
Letting people into your creative world can be rewarding, but it’s important to not let outside influences overstay their welcome. It can be tempting to reach for advice when you’re stuck. While help can be good, relying on others may leave you with a story that doesn’t feel like you. Trust your gut and give yourself the opportunity to figure it out on your own. The best outcomes come through perseverance.
No matter where you are in your writer’s journey, it’s never too late (or too early!) for better writing habits.
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