118: 5 Tips to Make Your Writing Better

 

If you want to become a stronger writer, there are lots of things you can work on. In this episode, I break down 5 tips to strengthen your writing skills. 

And if you're looking for a writing course that has in-depth trainings on developing ideas, creating characters, writing dialogue, creating conflict, and more, check out Idea to Book: https://stan.store/thekatiewolf/p/ideatobook

 

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5 tips to make your writing better

Hello, welcome back to your big creative life podcast. Thanks for joining me. I recorded the first few minutes of this episode. And then I had to stop and delete it because a FedEx truck had the audacity to pull up next to our house, not even at our house, but just the neighbor's house and our dog went crazy as he does when anyone comes near the house. So he's barking like crazy. And of course, my daughter's down for a nap. So I'm like, Okay, please, please don't wake her up. She's still asleep. But um, yeah, so just start over.

 

We're in the middle of probably four nights into a little sleep regression, my daughter is four months old. And there's a notorious kind of four month sleep regression that happens with babies. This is the kind of thing that I didn't know about before I had a baby. She's pretty good sleeper. Before this, she was getting up maybe once a night between like four and five to eat, which isn't bad, you know, going to sleep between like seven and 830. So she get a really good stretch of sleep in which is great. But now she's waking up a few times to eat. And it takes me back to the newborn days when she would get up like, I don't know, four times a night to eat maybe.

 

But we're lucky knock on wood. This isn't wood, but knock on wood. Because I know that for some babies or some parents, it's like an absolute nightmare. The four months sleep regression, they can be up every every hour. So I'm thankful that she's not at that point. And also just hoping that it doesn't get any worse. Let's just hope it stays like this and that it's quick. So wish me luck. This is this episode. It's like mid February as I'm recording this. So hopefully by the time the episode is out, we will be through it. She'll be back to sleep in mostly through the night. Fingers crossed. But I want to talk about five tips, things that you can do to improve your writing beyond just write more, because of course writing more practicing is going to develop that skill, it's going to develop a muscle it's like going to the gym, getting your workouts and getting your reps and the more that you do it, the stronger that you're going to get. And the same exact thing is true with writing.

 

But that isn't, I mean, I guess that's actionable in the sense that yes, you can go out and write but I want to, I want to give you some other tips beyond just keep writing. But I guess that's like a pro tip that I can give you. But besides that, let's dive into the tips. Okay, first one, I'm gonna look at my list here. First one is to take a writing class. Anytime I mentioned writing classes, like on social media, for example, I always get people saying, well, I don't have any writing classes near me, like I live in a small town or I live in the country or whatever. And that's fine. I know that not everyone lives in a big city where there is a literary center or a writing center or some school where you can take writing classes like I know that's not an option for everyone. But good news is it is 2024 There are so many options online for writing classes that you can take. I know Writer's Digest has some I know.

 

I'm blanking with the other one, I'll put a few options in the descriptions episode of, of, you know, reputable online writing classes, I have a few for sale that you can can purchase that you can get access to, I have one that's like on editing your draft, I have one that's on creating strong characters. And I've actually got a full online course called idea to book that literally takes you through. Like having an idea for a novel. It walks you through developing characters and conflict and plot, how to actually sit down and write your book, how to edit your book, all the things mindset, all the way to like finished completed edited book. So you can check those out as well. But taking a writing class is a fantastic way to sharpen your craft. But it's also really good to meet other writers, it's a great way to get motivation. I always feel so lit up and motivated and inspired when I take a writing class, even if it's one online, that's like an hour, it's not a super intensive thing. It always lights a fire under me to get writing and to get back to my work in progress. So definitely recommend trying out a class and you know, they're not I mean, there are like multi week classes where, you know, you meet every, I don't know, Tuesday night for eight weeks, but there are also just one or two hour kind of workshops. So there definitely are more affordable options out there if it's not in your budget to do like a lengthy multi week kind of class. So definitely check that out. That's my first tip.

 

Tip number two is what is tip number two. Oh, my screen is too small. Read like a writer. This gets talked about a lot and I want to dive into exactly what this means in case you are new to writing and you've heard this but you don't really know what this means. When you read like a writer yes, you're reading for fun and for entertainment because reading is enjoyable. But you're also reading with a really critical eye. Imagine that you are, you can approach this two ways. You can imagine that you are beta reading or editing for this author who has published this book. And of course, you're not going to actually like give them any this feedback. But this is just an exercise for you. Make notes to yourself as you're reading. What do you suggest? They do differently? Like, what do you think can be improved when it comes to specific elements like dialogue, conflict, plot, characters, suspense, all of those things? What do you what suggestions would you have for this author? If this author came to you and said, Hey, can you read this and give me some notes, I'm looking for feedback.

 

The other way you can do it is really just pretend that you are like doing something for a school assignment, where your homework assignment is to create an analysis of what the author's doing well, what's effective in the story, not just what you like, but what's effective, what what is working, what are they doing well? And then also, again, like, where do they need improvement? What suggestions do you have? And you can also just pay attention, if you don't want to approach it that way, you can just pay attention and see if you can pull apart, like analyze the text and see, you know, how are they using dialogue? Are they using dialogue in a really interesting way that maybe furthers the plot in a in a really kind of unique way?

 

Or is the dialogue something where the characters are saying one thing, but then because you have access to the characters, interiority, their thoughts and feelings and all that, you know that what they're saying doesn't necessarily match what they're feeling like? How is the author using dialogue to further suspense and tension in the narrative. So look at each element, and see if you can you like, kind of tease apart how the author is using those things. And this is something that you can do across a variety of genres, not just in the genre that you are writing in, or the the genre that you want to write in, read across all genres, read a wide variety of authors. And the more that you do this, the more that you start to hone your eye, the better your writing is going to be. And of course, it is really hard to do this to your own writing. I certainly can't be objective about my own writing, but I can at least start to identify things that are working in my own work, my own manuscript and things that aren't working. So the more that you do that, it will, it will definitely help.

 

Okay, I have, let me see here. Oh, I have one more tip for you. That's like something you can do. And then the last two tips are more things that you can do like in your actual writing itself. Beta read, similar to reading like a writer and taking writing classes, you are going to really sharpen your craft, and start to understand what makes a story function well, like all of these building blocks together, and what needs some work, what needs some improvement, that if you're able to articulate that to someone else that indicates that you have a good understanding of these different story components and how they're working. And again, when you are beta reading, when you are giving feedback to someone on their work in progress, this is not try to go beyond just like I like this, I don't like this, because that's helpful, in a way it's giving, you know, it's giving the author some notes on how future readers down the road might respond and react to their work. So that is something that's helpful. But you want to go beyond that, again, to really kind of be critical. And I don't mean critical isn't like pointing out all the things that they're doing wrong.

 

You know, you I'm sure you've heard of this, if you especially if you work in corporate and you've had evaluations for your job, there's like the feedback sandwich where you tell them something they're doing well, something that needs improvement in the end was something that that they're doing well, so you can kind of think about it that way to the point of beta reading is not to just shred someone's work. I saw a comment once from someone who is like, I pride myself on making writers cry with my feedback or something I was like, that's not the approach that I would take like I don't, I don't think you should be bragging about that. That's not the point. The point is not to tear someone down even if their manuscript needs a ton of work. That's not the point of beta reading. So don't do that.

 

Okay, my last two tips are, again, more kind of about the way that you're writing and like sentence structure and things like that. So I want to Well, the tip is to remove filler words to make your sentences and your actual writing stronger. And I'm going to give you an example of what I mean by this. So filler words are all of those things that will fill the sentences and kind of weigh it down. We do this a lot when we speak. If you notice in that previous sentence I just said, kind of actually, just like there, there are these words very, really, these words that don't add anything to the text, don't clarify things, they just weigh the sentence down. And oftentimes, there's a much more succinct way to say something as opposed to like adding all these unnecessary words. And, and just because we do it all the time when we speak doesn't mean that we should automatically translate that to text when you're when you're writing. So I'm gonna give you an example of a sentence with some filler words in it, and then tell you how I would change it, how I would edit it to remove those filler words. Now, just a caveat that some of this is going to be.

 

Some of this can be chalked up to a writing style. Some writers have a naturally more very sharp, succinct prose. And that's just the writing style. Some people don't they have a lot more flowery language, they like to have longer really complex sentences. And that's, that's not what we're talking about here. Both of those styles are worthy and wonderful. And the point of this exercise is not to tell you to cut down your sentences so that every sentence is brief, and contains the least amount of words possible. It's more about removing unnecessary words and making sure that every word in your sentence serves a purpose. Okay, so here's my example sentence. Let me pull up mything here. Okay.

 

She said, the very hot coffee on top of the really high table, which she realized was sort of wobbly.That's the sentence. She said, the very hot coffee on top of the really high table, what she realized was sort of wobbly. If you're listening to this, you can probably pull out some of those filler words, I can identify a few right off the bat. Very, really wobbly. So here's how I would revise that sentence. If this was my own writing, if on a first draft, I wrote that sentence in my book, this is what I would do to revise it and make it shorter and cut out those unnecessary filler words, I would say, she said the hot coffee on the high table, which she realized was wobbly.

 

Okay, those the example isn't the best sentence in all of literature. It's not a great sentence. But I just wanted to give you a quick example. You know, just to illustrate that saying she set the hot coffee on the high table, which he realized was wobbly, is a much better, more succinct way of saying what I said before and it takes out those filler words like sort of, instead of saying on top of you just say on the table, it takes out very really. So that's something that you can do in revision. Don't worry about this on your first draft. Again, this is that is absolutely sentence that I would write on my first draft. And then later, I probably when I was, you know, getting to the end of my editing process, I would probably trim it down and take out those filler words.

 

And one way that you can start to train yourself to notice these filler words is to read your work out loud. That's a good way to pick up on these words if you are having trouble doing it when you're looking at your sentences. Okay, so then my last tip, let me go back to my list here. Where did my list go? Oh, okay. Be sparing with your adverbs. Use adverbs sparingly, which is an adverb I know. Okay, right. Or humor.

 

This is not there are writers out there. I think maybe Stephen King famously said something about adverbs. I don't know. I don't mind a well placed adverb. I think it's totally fine to to do that. But what you don't want to do is rely on adverbs to convey information to us. If after every single verb, you have an adverb that conveys how something is being done, it can sort of weaken sort of, I'd like noticing now that I'm using filler words when I'm talking. But it can weaken your writing. So instead of saying, she smiled wildly at him, and laughed loudly at his joke, try to you can take out those adverbs. And, you know, just let the sentence stand on its own. And if there is something that needs to be conveyed, in terms of like how something is being done, think about using other ways to convey that information to us. If you think about the old kind of advice like Show, don't tell this is kind of like that. Because if you're including so many adverbs in your sentences, you're basically just telling us all about what the character is doing and how they're responding, how they're behaving, etc.

 

But if you can show that through body language, through the reaction that the character is doing, that's a stronger way to do it. And that's gonna make your writing stronger. So you know, instead of saying like she laughed nervously and moved her foot around timidly or something like that, you can you can say that oh, the character like, you know, her cheeks turned red and she, you know, looked down at the ground and mumbled something you can like use body language to show that the character is nervous that the character is is timid about something as opposed to just relying on those adverbs. Again, I'm not a I don't have a hard and fast rule that says no adverbs, like I think it's fine. I think again, I use adverbs. Sometimes in my writing, it's, they're totally fine. But it's just being cautious about how many you use, and if you're leaning on them as kind of a crutch, I guess.

 

So, I guess I should back up a step and just talk about what an adverb is really quickly in case you are kind of rusty young on English grammar. If it's been a while since you've taken a class or if English is you know, not your native language or something. An adverb modifies a verb. So in the examples that I gave earlier, you know, she laughed nervously, nervously would be the adverb because it's modifying left which is the verb the action that the character is taking. She moved timidly, she chuckled loudly, you know, a lot of adverbs and an L Y, not all of them, but a lot do. So that's what it that's what an adverb does. So again, totally fine to have some adverbs in there, nothing wrong with that, but just be cautious about not overly relying on them. Because that can be a sign of a newer writer, it can be a sign of a writer doesn't really have the, the understanding of how to use other tools to convey what's what's going on to the reader. So just something to be mindful of.

 

And again, I guess you could, same with a filler words, you could argue that this is that is a stylistic thing. But I don't really think that's true. I think it's, it's more a matter about strengthening your writing, no matter what your style is. If you are someone who writes more succinct short sentences, this can apply to you too, to use adverbs sparingly. Or if you have the long descriptive prose the beautiful sentences that go on and on and on, like, same thing to use adverbs sparingly. So wondering, iterate reiterate my advice from the beginning of episode that was like not one of the five tips which is just write write, write, that is how you get better is practice.

 

You can do a lot of the things that I mentioned in this episode, you can beta read, you can take classes, you can do XYZ. And that's all great to learn and to get motivated to meet other writers, etc. But ultimately, you have to write to get better. I always say like, part of how you learn to write a book is by writing a book. You just do it and then you learn along the way. So make sure that you're not kind of doing some of the things that I talked about in this episode as a way to put off the actual writing part because you feel like you need to learn all the things before you dive in and start writing. You don't I promise. Get in there, get your hands messy. Start writing.

 

You know, it's going to be rough at first, it might feel kind of messy. That's totally fine. That's what a rough draft with anything is for. So yeah, so good luck. Let me know if any of these tips are helpful for you as you start your writing journey or continue your writing journey, and I will see you next week.

Katie Wolf