My Top Writing Advice

              

               I had someone recently come to me for writing advice, as they want to start writing. Talking with them brought back memories of other people I had talked to and passing on what I had learned by basically winging everything. XD 

               My top piece of advice I’ve started sharing with other people on writing now is: 

1. Write what you want, and don’t let other people tell you what to write. 

This is such a huge thing for me, as I had people tell me I shouldn’t be writing romance, I shouldn’t be writing adult characters, I shouldn’t be writing things with guns or law enforcement. 

J.K. Rowling once said, ‘I just write what I want to write. I write what amuses me. It’s totally for myself.’

If God gave you a story to tell, it’s yours alone to tell. No one else can tell you how it should play out according to their beliefs and interests. 

2. The decision to plot is totally up to you, but when you do decide to plot or just wing it, sit down, and write your story. Don’t worry about the editing, don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense, just write the story. You can’t edit a blank page. 

3. Even if you’re not a plotter, character sketches are really nice to have. Write out any details and thoughts you have on your character. When you have a nice deeply developed character, it will carry into your story and when situations come up, you’ll know ‘oh this is how my character would react because they have this sort of personality, or this little quirk that makes them a clean freak’. 

    A lot of people recommend reading books on writing. I don’t actually do that very often, mostly because I don’t have any available for me. But, my favorite book on writing to read, is called Go Teen Writers. My book bought this book for me as a gift after someone hurt me, implying that writing wasn’t that great. I was probably fourteen at the time. But I have poured over that book so many times. I carried it with me everywhere, underlined a lot, and made notes in the margins. I would recommend this book to every young writer, or even older writer, as the information in there is so amazing!

   I hope these tips help you in some way to just boost your confidence if you’re starting to write, or even if you are writing!

           Keep writing!