Writing tips
A few good tips to develop your writing.
Every experienced writer reads widely. Professional writers always recommend reading as a way for the writer to learn their craft. Reading widely can enhance your writing technique, broaden your scope, multiply your ideas and deepen your understanding of literary form in all its variety.
Each issue of Victorian Writer includes the column "A month of reading", where an established writer discusses their latest books bought and read and the books they will be reading next. See page 6 of the current Victorian Writer.
Practise every day to become comfortable with written language. If you set aside an hour of writing time every day you will quickly see a growth toward mastery of written language.
Read your work aloud. Gustave Flaubert, the great French author of Madame Bovary, discovered that reading his work aloud was an infallible method of checking for errors in punctuation. Each evening he would stand in his garden and declaim the day's work in a loud, firm voice. When he ran out of breath, or his breathing became irregular, he knew he needed punctuation or to change the punctuation to make the sentence clearer. Flaubert's rule was that a pause of:
- one beat equals a comma
- two beats equals a semi-colon
- three beats a colon
- four beats a full stop.
Generations of writers since have used his discovery, although the neighbours might think that you're crazy.
If you can't make sense of it when reading it aloud, your readers won't be able to either (or the publisher you're trying to impress). Children's books must be easily read aloud.
Readers read for enjoyment, but they also read to learn. Research is the art of knowing things that the reader doesn't, and thorough research can lead to new story ideas or innovative twists in established forms.
Know your audience and your genre. Read books similar to yours. Read classics and read latest releases. Imagine which three books your novel will sit next to on the shelf at your local bookshop. Imagine which authors your readers will also be interested in. Know which similar titles yours will be listed next to on webpages and online bookshops that display related books.