What Would Your Advice For Just-starting-out Young Authors Be?

What would your advice for just-starting-out young authors be?

I love new writers! I’ve never known a better way to escape my reality and live a thousand different lives.

I started writing when I was young, maybe 12 or 13 years old. I am now 25, and very much consider myself to be a child, but still, in my 10+ years of personal writing and classes, here are some of the best tips I can give anyone who is new to writing, regardless of age.

Read. Read. Read. Then read some more. The easiest and fastest way to learn how to write is by reading and studying how other people have written their stories. Study their balance of dialogue vs description vs action. Study the words they use and what they’re choosing to describe. Study the scenes that make you feel something, or pull you to the story even more, and dissect it until you understand how to do it.

Daydream. At night, in the morning, before and after school, during school, during work. When people are trying to talk to you, just daydream. Image worlds with populated moons. Imagine worlds with multiple human-like species all living in the same area. Image a boy who goes home and cries to his adoptive family parents, and girls who practices knife throwing every night to prepare for the apocalypse that no one sees coming. Dream of everything and anything because that’s how you keep and improve your creativity. Eventually you may even write something with it.

Write for yourself. Always start by writing what you enjoy, and love your characters and your stories. Everything about your first draft should be because you love the story, not what other people like. You will never please everyone, so start with yourself, and build a community with the ones who love your story as much as you do.

Do it on your own timeline. If you want to write a book in a month, edit the next and publish right after, do it. If you want to write the first five chapters of 8 books without finishing, do it. If, like me, you want to write your first novel at 18 years old, and 7 years later still not feel ready to publish, that’s ok! You are not falling behind anyone else, you are exactly where you should be on your own path.

Practice. Your writing will improve with practice, that’s how it works, it’s how it always works. No way to skip right to publishing a first draft and becoming famous for it. Practice and just keep writing, you will improve.

Challenge yourself. While you may love fantasy or romance, or maybe all your story ideas are too big for only one book and they all end up being series’, you need to try new things. Write a mystery short story. Write poetry on how you feel. Write one page on how you could survive a zombie apocalypse as long as you have your coffee in the morning, it doesn’t matter, just try new things. Trying new things is how I wrote this haiku: Take a deep inhale, Breathe fresh air into my lungs, I savorfreedom. Is it the greatest haiku ever? No, but it makes me happy, and reminds me that I can write, good or bad, and still be proud of myself.

Keep all your projects. Good or bad. Look back on them years later and think, yeah that was terrible, at least I’m better now. Or maybe think, this wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. It’s a progressive journey. You can take your time. DONT EVER SHAME YOUR YOUNGER SELF FOR THEIR WORK. THEY TRIED THEIR HARDEST AND WROTE AS BEST THEY COULD. WE ARE PROUD OF OURSELVES, NOT EMBARRASSED OR SHAMED. Whether the work is from years ago or days go. Be kind to yourself, no one else owes you that.

Compare. Compare to popular novels, compare to your friends stories or to people online. Compare and see if your character are developed enough, or if your story makes sense, or if it’s relatable. When comparing however, keep in mind that your written style will be different than all others writers. Your first novel will not be the same as an author’s 10th book that just went viral on TikTok. It takes practice and time. Compare for style, technique, structure and plot. Not for popularity, worth, importance, and don’t feel down thinking that someone writing at a higher grade level makes them better, it doesn’t.

Share your work. If you are embarrassed, use a pen name. That’s perfectly fine. Put your work out there and get feedback. Having one person saying your story is (negative criticism here) is going to happen, don’t freak out. It doesn’t mean your story is flawed and should be tossed. If most people are saying that, then maybe it’s time to revisit the story and plot. Getting feedback from people reading your story is important, you want to ask specific questions so you don’t get generic answers. Get real reviews from real people, the mean voice in your head doesn’t get a say.

Learn the difference between perfect and done. I know, I know. Perfectionists around the world just scoffed and thought ‘I would if I could’. Here’s the thing, it’ll never be perfect. A word won’t be right, you can’t find the right way to convey an emotion, your choice of vocabulary isn’t up to your standards, I get it. You want your work to be absolute perfection so that everyone loves it and no one can say a bad thing about it, but it doesn’t work that way. Instead make it to ‘complete’, then nitpick some details, then it’s done. Done is good, it’s where you want to be.

Self-publishing? Pay for a professional editor and a graphic designer. It makes a difference, I promise.

There’s lots of others, but I would say as a writer-starter-pack, these should get you started, then you will learn lessons all on your own, or find them as you’re writing later on. Truly, just have fun, and the rest will come with time.

Happy Writing!

Willow