1. Write more
When it comes to ways to improve writing, I’m sure you've all heard you just need to write more but most authors take that to mean that you just need to get behind the keyboard and knock out more book. I mean the more you type the better you get. Makes sense.
Unfortunately, that's not completely true because if you practice wrong it'll just make you more wrong. Yes, writing more is a great way for improving your writing but only if you're intentional about what you write. Don't just write another book write another scene. Tweaking a scene that you've already written could make what you have written to be better described.
Changing the lighting in the room, the time of year or perhaps the weather outside can affect that same scene.
There are many times when I’ll take a first draft that I’ve written and rewrite portions of it from a completely different point of view just to help me see if there's any way, I could improve the writing. Being intentional about what you write can help you get better at writing.
2. Read more
This is another writing tip that I’m sure you've heard more times than you want to count. While many writers will say read more when it comes to how to improve writing, they're a bit divisive when it comes to what to read. Some will say read books in your genre while others advise that you read books
Yes, you want to read books in your genre to see what the common tropes are as well as what scenes, scenarios, and dialogue that your potential audience is used to reading. That said, you must be careful if you only read in your genre.
There are two major consequences you could run into- number one you could end up losing interest in the genre, and the other issue that can arise is that you could find yourself unintentionally mimicking other authors. While obviously you want to get better at writing, you don't want to do it at the detriment of losing who you are and losing your own voice. Therefore, I also read other genres.
Seeing how other authors in other niches handle similar situation, themes and dialogues can help equip you with an arsenal of techniques and approaches that you may have never previously thought of. For example, something as simple as a conversation between friends may be handled completely different in a romantic comedy versus a romance novel and even a space opera. So, when you're reading a book, if you run across a scene or a passage that makes you feel something, highlight it and then go back later and analyse what they did to make you feel that way. As it the word choices, their pacing, and their dialogue that makes you feel that way.
3. Know your weakness
Another way that you can work on improving your writing is to know your weaknesses. When you're self-editing, what are some of the common mistakes that you find, what are some of the common mistakes that your editor points out when they're reviewing your work, what issues have your readers found? I know it's hard to admit our faults but when we finally come clean at least to ourselves with what areas of opportunities we have, then we can better set up a game plan on how to improve your writing.
Some issues you may run into are passive voice, using meaningless words. Unrealistic dialogue pacing, telling verse showing character building and so on. I could go on and on. Most of the time I can take the word that out of a sentence and it doesn't even affect the sentence structure at all. Once we acknowledge where we need to improve our writing, then we can search up resources to help overcome those hurdles.
4. Worry less about your word count
I hate to break it to you, but your readers don't care about how many words are in your story. I doubt they're picking up your book and counting the content, No. They're reading the content they care about, the content of your story and not the number of words.
Now don't get me wrong, I’m not saying that you can create a 200-page novel with 10,000 words and not get some negative reviews on it. What I am saying is that focusing on the word count and not the story is a great way for you to end up cramming in unnecessary words just to meet some arbitrary pre-assigned word count.
On the other hand, adjusting your sentence or paragraph length based on a scene is completely fine. Fast-paced action scenes should have short sharp sentences to help depict that sense of urgency. Conversely, you can build up suspense in a scary scene by making your sentences longer and more drawn out
5. Get rid of filler words
Filler words are those words that take your reader out of the immersiveness of your story and make them more of an observer. I’m not talking about point of view- first person versus third person, that's not what I’m talking about. I'm talking about your actual word choices.
When you make your reader instead of experiencing something in the story themselves, you place them next to the character and you make them more of an observer. For example, in the sentence “she heard a dog bark and it startled her”, you're not witnessing anything, there's no emotion evoked from that sentence. A better way to write this would be “the barking next door startled her”.
It's written in the same point of view and even in the same tense but it's more active, you're hearing the barking. I don't need to say who heard it because the fact that she was startled makes it clear that she's the one that heard it. I don't even need to mention the dog because we all know what animal it is. Just by me saying the barking, we know it's a dog.
Removing filler words is a quick and easy way to improve your writing and better the reading experience for your audience.
