As a writer and content creator, I'm aware of the overall struggles of writing, and I thought to myself: "wouldn't it be nice to have some tips for writing?" So here are 10 tips for writers from thinking of a topic to the final draft:
1) Ask yourself questions.
Questions provoke your brain to think and to come up with an answer. When you don’t have any idea what to write about ask yourself some basic questions like: what is new in your life, what are you recently interested in and what is trending. These questions will lead you to some topics that you can potentially write about and lead you to somewhere to start, instead of staring at a blank piece of paper feeling overwhelmed.
2) Write Something.
As a writer, the worst thing I find myself doing at times is just blankly staring at my laptop screen wondering what to write. I just sit there, motionless. It isn’t until I start physically typing words that I actually come up with an idea to write about. So write any ideas or thoughts you’re having when you sit down to write, these thoughts could lead you to the topic you actually want to write about and that’s the point.
3) Brainstorm and Make Connections.
Once I have my idea to write about, I just keep writing and don’t stop. I make a list of my thoughts that are intertwined with that central idea, then I decide how my thoughts that are related to my central idea are actual related to each other as well. Make connections, and make lots of them so that your writing flows consistently with your idea.
4) Write out the direction you want your article to go to.
When you have your connections, you can plot the sequence and order you want your thoughts to go in while you write. This is a nice guide to follow while you write so you aren’t just jotting down ideas aimlessly and have lots of editing to do afterwards. Editing sequence and order for a writer is one of the biggest edits to make, so to avoid that or lower the amount of editing your order at all cost.
5) Write. Write. Write.
After you have all your brainstorming done, it’s time to write so write a lot. Writing too much for a writer is easier in the long run than writing not enough. We all have been there when we have a word limit or a page minimum that we must reach, but we just haven’t wrote enough to get there. So write too much, don’t focus on how much you have to write and be overwhelmed by how you’re going to get there. Just write down what you want to write down, if you have too much it’s not the biggest deal in the world because editing is a thing.
6) Check your grammar, vocab and so on.
Edit your writing. Once you have the final paper done, it’s time to edit, and determine if you've actually made any sense. I honestly think editing is one of the best parts to writing, because it’s the process that gets you closer to the final product. Editing makes your writing better, not necessarily writing, so edit every corner. Edit overall format, sequence, syntax, punctuation, vocab, and more. Edit every part of your writing so that your finish product is actually finished.
7) Check your grammar, vocab, and so on-- again.
Seriously, keep editing and checking these parts of your writing. It really does make your writing top notch versus average.
8) Read your writing more than once.
Read over your work multiple times. Read your work all the way through before you edit. After you edit, read your work all the way through again. Take a break that can be a day or so away from your paper, then go back to read your paper later. This will give you a fresh perspective to assure that your paper is to your standards.
9) Don’t doubt yourself.
As a writer, it is so easy to doubt your own writing. You may think that your writing isn’t good enough in lots of ways, but every writer has felt this way. Writing is a very personal form of art since it is literally writing your thoughts onto paper for people to read, and hopefully be interesting enough that people actually want to continue reading it. It’s putting yourself out there for the world to see and it’s frightening, however you have to put yourself out there if you truly want to pursue writing and you have to practice your writing a lot. Writing is like anything else in the life and you have to put some time into writing in order to make mistakes, edit those mistakes, and keep gaining experience so you can grow as a writer. No one should expect a writer to be a professional before they’ve written their first paper, article, novel or anything of the sort. A writer constantly becomes better the more they write, and all those forms of means to publish on are ways to practice writing. It’s a skill, an art, and it’s something that needs experience to be exceptional at.
10) Enjoy your writing.
It doesn’t matter if you write to jot down your thoughts at the end of the day, if you write as your job, or if you write as a hobby: enjoying writing and your overall final work is the most important thing. As a creator, if you don’t enjoy what you’ve created then why create it? Write because you enjoy writing, write because it relaxes you and write because it makes you happy.
