How to Improve Your Writing: 11 Novel Writing Tips For Newbies | iWriterly

whether or not you're a newbie Raider you're probably curious how you can improve your writing in this video we discuss 11 tips for how to improve your writing coming up hanging Buckner's I'm Meg Latour I'm a writer of science fiction fantasy and romance and my debut novel is coming out and fall of 2020 I also formerly worked at a literary agency on this episode of I'm readily we're going to be talking about eleven tips for how to improve your writing now before we get today's content hit that subscribe button and ring the bell if you haven't already here on I write early we create videos about how to be a successful modern-day author writing a novel is really difficult often it takes many writers years to complete their first novel and then many more years after that to write a good novel so that means that yeah your first novels usually aren't very good especially those early drafts are not the best that we will ever write in our writing careers and that's because as new untested authors we don't know how to write a good book yet I've heard that writers wait about four books prior to getting a literary agent whether or not that's true most writers have to write several books before they really get the hang of things if you're watching this video you're probably wondering how you can shorten your learning curve and write better books more quickly let's talk about the eleven ways that you can improve your writing skills today number one acknowledge that you don't know everything and that your writing isn't perfect one surefire sign of a newbie writer is to think that your writing is perfect nothing that anyone can say against your story is applicable because if they do have a critique that just means they don't get your story and not that your story needs improving certainly not that I was there friends a once upon a time newbie writer meg thought that her first draft first book ever was going to be a New York Times bestselling book it was not as I've said many many times on the channel before first drafts are not final drafts according to Terry Pratchett the first draft is just you telling yourself the story therefore be open-minded to the fact that while you might have a great concept here or really cool characters you might have to polish that book many many times and go through many many drafts in order to prepare it for the eyes of the reader number two research how to write a good book as numerators we cannot hope to figure out how to write books on our own or at least most of us can't therefore you will want to do some research on your own about how to write a good book for example some topics you might want to research and learn more about include plot structure character arcs how to give a character unique voice pacing as you might be inferring from this list running a good book is about more than grammar here are a few resources that you could check out non-fiction books about how to write a novel which could be checked out from the library so you do not immediately have to purchase anything free articles and blogs online YouTube videos I write early for example is part of a niche on YouTube called author tube where writers and creators make videos about how to write books you could check out online courses there's always the option of a formal education at a college or university a separate drop-down item - this one is like online courses taught by professors but aren't necessary program of sorts reading books by grace in your genre is probably one of the best ways that you can learn how to write say the books that you love and analyze what do those authors do that make such a great story and why are you drawn to those particular stories and of course there's many more options these are just a few of the ways that you can research how to write a good book now keep in mind there are many free resources to learn more about how to write a good book I referenced a few in this list such as free articles and blogs YouTube videos right now you're watching I regularly it's free there's a lot of stuff that maybe if you have a local library you can get books in the local library so don't be pulling out your wallet right away I talked about this a little bit in my previous video who should give writing advice but if you're gonna be paying for anything an online course or a book or whatever it is make sure that the person teaching that subject is an expert ideally they should be doing the things that you yourself aspire to do I will leave a link in the description below to my video who should give freighting advice if you want to learn a little bit more about my thoughts on how to pick good paid programs number three consider outlining your book before you write it if you haven't yet heard of plotters and Panthers or gardeners and architects allow me to enlighten you a plotter also called an architect is a person who plans out their story prior to writing it a pantser which is someone who flies by the seat of their pants and also called a gardener it's someone who doesn't plan the story before they write it a lot of times these are art discovery writers they're gonna write things and discover things about the story along the way and they don't outline or do lots of preparation in advance the reason I also call it gardeners and architects is because there's the famous quote by the author george RR martin who wrote the Song of Ice and Fire series a better known as Game of Thrones that talks about the plotter versus pants our discussion but he calls them gardeners versus architects I had heard that first before dove hearing plotters and Panthers but on an author tube that's what most people refer to it as so just figure it there are both terms out there in case you guys have also heard that quote as well now there is no right or wrong way to go about writing however a panther has a lot more work to do in the editing phase because they don't plan out their work in advance therefore consider checking things out like beech sheets or researching the plot and structure of a novel before you write your novel you don't have to write your novel out in advance if you're just like me and that's totally cool but consider checking out some of these things prior to writing just so you have a general idea of what plot beat should be in what sections because all stories have structure it's just a matter of where those things happen in the book maybe happens at 15% in this book and this other one this big plot beat happens at 10% you still have to have those beats but they don't have to be in the exact same places save the cat writes a novel for example has a lot of beat sheets and that is a popular resource here author too but definitely consider checking the out I think I should add here that if you're writing a very first novel you probably have no idea if you're a planner or a panther or a gardener or an architect you've never written a book before so you don't know what your process is so I recommend experimenting with both avenues to see which works best for you for me I was pantsing my first couple of drafts and then after writing my first couple of books it's like not liking for me and then I flipped to the exact opposite side so now I plot my books out in advance and I no just plot the general events I plot chapter by chapter outlines so wherever you fall in the spectrum if you're a new writer experiment to see what works best for you number four work with critique partners and beta readers critique partners and beta readers both provide feedback on unpublished manuscripts but they are a little bit different critique partners are writers who provide feedback on your work usually by request so maybe you swap chapters or full manuscripts beta readers are usually not writers and they read your manuscript and provide general feedback it's not gonna be quite as in-depth as feedback from a writer but my big oh we're stopping here and that is so you are getting literally beta readers people to read your novel as readers and tell you what is or isn't working I think there are a lot of people in the writing community that also used writers as beta readers I know I certainly do for some of the group that I get together so you know generally speaking beta readers do not have to be writers critique partners are writers and usually you're swapping manuscripts as you probably know without outside feedback on our stories we cannot improve our writing this is due to writers our own blindness to the flaws in our story because we are so close to it if we see this story in our heads we can see it so perfectly that we don't we're blind to those faults when we put idea in our heads - idea on a paper we don't see where things are missing maybe no we don't describe a character enough or show how they're feeling or maybe we're telling more than showing but this idea is like this perfection in our head and it's so wonderful and beautiful and sometimes there's an error in translation of said idea in our head - idea on the page and it is the job of a good critique partner and a beta reader to help us find where there's errors in translation to say hi material at this time you notice we didn't work what if you do this and so we really really just need outside feedback on our work as writers in order to help us make the best story possible number five be open to critiques or feedback on your work it's not just about getting feedback from critique partners and beta readers if you're not open to making changes to your story then this exercise of getting feedback is pointless do your best look at your story objectively and listen to what the critique partners and beta readers are saying number six look closely at your weakest points did your critique partners and beta readers have a consensus about what parts of the story really needed some work that is most likely your weak spot as a writer for me I've always struggled with info dumps and most recently on my adult space opera that's coming out in fall of 2020 one thing I've been working really hard on is not having too much internalization from my protagonist and spending too much time in her head versus actually out in scenes doing things simply knowing those things is really helpful so that when you are self editing you can look for those things as you're editing maybe even before you get your manuscript to critique partners and beta readers or maybe afterwards it's really important to be able to identify where you just struggle as a writer and we all have something that we struggle with so listen to what the consensus is for feedback if a lot of your critique partners and beta readers are saying this thing needs to be improved you probably really want to focus on that but there's always an outliner that one person that is like oh oh wait you know I really didn't like this you should do this inside while everyone else is like so there's always gonna be one outlier but I would say be attentive to what everybody is saying and look for common themes or threats if there's a common theme more than likely you are going to want to address it number seven edit the book on your own many times as I mentioned earlier the first draft is not the final draft most authors edit the book dozens of times before you see a final copy that's on the bookshelves when I see it dozens of times there's some times that they ended it on their own by themselves and then sometimes with an editor or beta readers or whatever personally I edit my own manuscripts two to five times on my own front to back the beginning to end of the manuscript before I will ship it off to my first round of critique partners or alpha readers after that I work with critique partners and beta readers and I send them my manuscript and work through many many drafts and then self-edit in between consider working with more critique partners and beta readers and it could be the same person or different people after you've maybe work with them once and then you've implemented your own feedback consider working with them again ideally you want to work with critique partners and/or beta readers through several drafts of your book the exact number of times you work with critique partners and beta readers is going to be up to you and up to them and everyone's availabilities but I recommend at least two at the very least two but I think maybe even three to four times is a good number before maybe you send it off to a literary agent or to an editor if you're self-publishing number eight brush up on grammar while good grammar doesn't make a good story bad grammar can pull you out of one let me say that again well good grammar doesn't make a good story bad grammar can pull you out of one eye such you will want to be able to identify proper punctuation sentence structure and so on and I read early we are affiliates with Grandma Lee I personally use them and I have never ever actually said this to you guys on this channel but I'm not the best speller I swear all the words that sound the same I mix them up all the time like course Co AR se and then of course cou RSE I mix those things up all the time and so things like grandma's like uh-huh you're using the wrong thing so whether or not you use the resource like Grandma Lee and if you do want to use it affiliate link is in the description below we get a small cut directly from grammar only if you do sign up through a link but whether or not use Girma Lee or something else just brush up on your grammar it's good to do but it does not make a good story number 9 read books by greats within your genre I mentioned this a little bit earlier in this video but dissect books that you love try to determine what you enjoy in these books as well as what the author excels at in addition maybe we think about the ways that you can emulate some of the things or incorporate certain aspects of what they do into your own writing without plagiarizing or feeling like you're Greek gird your teething their style of writing you don't want to be like mimicking them to me that's like icky but it's good to be like oh my gosh this is how this person portrays a unique voice for a character let me think about how I can do that in my own writing number 10 write often to sharpen your skills according to Malcolm Gladwell it takes 10,000 hours which is approximately 10 years of doing something to become an expert well you don't mean to write books for 10 years before you're deemed ready to put your books into the world you do need to be putting time into honing your skill and craft as a writer number 11 write the next book going along with our previous point and the best way to be a better author is to write many books that is because the more books you write the better you get at it from my experience writing a book isn't something that you can teach sure you can learn the principles for how to write a good book from other authors or teachers or industry experts but you must learn how you as an author operate through the process of writing your own books how you write is going to be different from how somebody else writes therefore the only way to glean that knowledge of how you work as an author is to actually write a book I feel like there's a lot of people that I speak to you in the comments that are like hey I've been working on this book for 10 years and Wow there's absolutely authors that work on books for many many years just be careful that you're not hanging on that first book for too long because I think there's a lot of things that can be learned by even temporarily shelving a books of putting it to the side not deleting it just putting it to the side and working on a new project you learned so so much by working on a new project and then you said maybe learn about story structure or character arcs and plot arcs and all these different things that you can't necessarily learn from reading the same book over and over and over so just a word of caution I'm not saying to stop writing your book cause you've been writing it for too long you do you however the best way to become a better author is to write more books thank you for tuning into this episode of ayat' writerly all about how to improve your writing if you like what you saw give this video a thumbs up it lets me know you liked the shape of content and want more and if you're new here welcome please consider subscribing I post writing and bookish related videos one to two times per week if you have questions when I think that we cover today please do leave those in the comments below be sure to connect with me on my other social media platforms I'm on Twitter and Instagram I also have a monthly newsletter book nerd buzz which includes exclusive insiders and giveaways for subscribers when you subscribe to the newsletter you'll receive free copies of how to format your manuscript for submission which is a or document template add a crane checklist if you subscribe you will also have first access to news about the publication journey and status of my upcoming manuscript all the links are in the description below that's it for today as always keep writing [Music]

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Keywords: writing tips, best writing advice, writing advice, how to write a novel, how to write a book, writing a book, novel writing, book writing, how to write a book for beginners, publishing advice, traditional publishing, how to write a novel for beginners, how to improve your writing, how to write a better book, how to write a good book, is my writing good, writing tips for beginners, writing advice for beginners, iwriterly, meg latorre, authortube

Id: ihp_2_bAHYI

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019