8 Writing Tips for Beginners

8 Writing Tips for Beginners 8 Writing Tips for Beginners 8 Writing Tips for Beginners By Ali Hale Welcome to the wonderful world of writing! However young or old you are, writing can be so rewarding. For some writers, it’s a fun hobby and a creative outlet; for others, it’s a dream career. When you’re just getting started, you might feel excited but also a little daunted – where should you begin? What do you need to know and learn? The great thing about writing is that whatever stage you’re at, you can keep growing your skills and honing your craft. This applies whether you’re a total beginner or a best-selling author: there’s always something new to learn or try. In your early months (or even years) as a writer, these eight tips should help you on your way Tip #1: Try Lots of Different Types of Writing When you’re just starting out, you might not know what you want to write – you just want to write! Or, you might have a firm idea of the type of writing you’d like to do (maybe you want to be a novelist or a poet, for instance). As a beginner, you’re in a great position to try out lots of different types of writing, without needing to commit to one in particular: no-one’s (yet!) demanding your next book. So have a go at a wide range of genres and styles – you might surprise yourself with what you enjoy. I never set out to be a freelancer (my writing dreams were all about being a novelist) †¦ but ten years into freelancing, I still love it, and I’ve written and published three novels too. Tip #2: Read Some Good Writing Blogs or Books †¦ But Not Too Many There are some brilliant books and blogs out there that’ll teach you the basics of writing (and much more): Daily Writing Tips is a great place to begin, of course! For fiction-writers, I always recommend K.M. Weiland’s blog Helping Writers Become Authors, and Nigel Watts’ book Get Started in †¦ Writing a Novel; for non-fiction writers, the Copyblogger blog is a great read, as is Joanna Penn’s book How to Write Non-Fiction. One trap that beginner writers sometimes fall into, though, is that they read and read, trying to learn everything there is to know about writing – but they don’t actually write! So don’t get too caught up in reading: make sure you’re also setting aside time to try out writing exercises, or to develop your own ideas. Tip #3: Start With Small Projects, Not Book-Length Works If you’ve never written much before, launching straight into a novel probably won’t work: either you’ll run out of steam within a few chapters, or you’ll keep writing but you’ll end up with a story that needs an awful lot of work to make it publishable. It’s better to hone your skills on smaller projects first: think short stories if you’re a fiction-writer, or short articles or blog posts if you’re a non-fiction writer. These can be a great way to explore potential ideas and topics without committing to a book-length work straight away. Tip #4: Write Regularly So You Don’t Lose Momentum Some writers think you should write every day: personally, I don’t think that’s very good advice. Maybe your weekdays are very busy, because you work long hours, but your weekends are clear. Or perhaps it’s the other way round: you have some time during the week while your kids are at school, but your weekends are packed with activities. It’s fine to set a writing schedule that suits you and your life †¦ but do make sure you’re allowing yourself time to write on a regular basis. If weeks go by without you writing anything, you’ll inevitably lose momentum. Writing at least once a week works for most people. For those who need extra help fighting procrastination, this post has many tips to beat writers block. Tip #5: Use Clear, Straightforward Words While I’m a huge fan of words, and love the sound of some more unusual ones (eclectic is one of my favourites!) †¦ I think that as a writer, it’s normally best to keep things simple. Even if, in school, you got extra marks for showing off your impressive vocabulary, readers frankly don’t care! You should, of course, use the word that best fits what you mean: sometimes a precise, technical word is the best choice, even if it isn’t the simplest. But in general, keep George Orwell’s advice in mind: â€Å"Never use a long word where a short one will do,† and â€Å"Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.† Needless to say that you should use clear, correct English as well. Using a spellchecker is not enough. Proofreading and editing is essential to produce quality prose. Tip #6: (Fiction Writers) Don’t Mix Past and Present Tense This can sometimes be tricky to get to grips with when you’re new to writing: but if you’re writing piece of fiction, you need to choose between past and present tense. You can tell the story as though it’s already happened: John hurried down the street. Sue ran after him, furious. â€Å"John!† she shouted. â€Å"Come back here!† Alternatively, you can tell the story as if it’s currently happening: John hurries down the street. Sue runs after him, furious. â€Å"John!† she shouts. â€Å"Come back here!† What you can’t do is mix past and present: John hurried down the street. Sue runs after him, furious†¦ Sometimes, there’s a place for switching from past to present tense or vice versa – but be careful that you don’t switch accidentally. Tip #7: (Fiction Writers) Don’t Use the Same Word Too Often If you use the same word repeatedly within a short space of time, it can start to stand out for the reader and become a distraction from your writing. This is particularly true of unusual words (I read a novel recently by an author with a particular liking for the word â€Å"stolid†). Here’s an example: John locked the door before opening the letter. He could hear Sue moving around in the kitchen, just outside the door. As he drew the letter from the envelope, there was a knock on the door. â€Å"John? What are you doing in there? Open the door!† The word â€Å"door† appears four times in that paragraph, and there’s a danger of it having a slightly comic effect. Some words are fine to repeat as often as you like, however: little ones like â€Å"a†, â€Å"the†, â€Å"and†, â€Å"he†, â€Å"she and so on. With character names, too, it’s best to just pick something to call them and stick with it. So don’t try to remove all repeated words – but do keep an eye out for words or phrases that you tend to over-use. Tip #8: (Fiction Writers) Stick to One Character’s Perspective at a Time Even if you’re writing in the third-person rather than the first-person, it’s a good idea to stick to just one character’s perspective in any given scene or passage – this is called â€Å"third-person limited† or sometimes â€Å"deep POV† and contrasts with the â€Å"third-person omniscient† viewpoint that’s typical of classic 19th century literature. Readers expect this close third-person perspective, and it allows you to give the thoughts and viewpoint of one character at a time – helping the reader to identify with that person and to really understand them. Beyond all these tips, though, there’s one thing I want to leave you with: the fact that no-one is born able to write. You may not yet have the skills you want as a writer †¦ but you can develop those skills. A year or so ago, my five-year-old daughter could only write a few words (and often got her letters backwards); now, it’s fascinating to watch her fledgling attempts at writing stories, messages, and even puzzles. Just like her, you could look back a year from now and be surprised at how far you’ve come. Wherever you are right now with your writing, keep on working at it, keep enjoying it, and keep finding new things to learn as you go along. Good luck! Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Writing Basics category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:When to Capitalize Animal and Plant NamesThe Writing Process20 Names of Body Parts and Elements and Their Figurative Meanings

How To Look For Self Assessment Essay Samples

How To Look For Self Assessment Essay SamplesIt is very important to be able to write your own personal self assessment essay. You should be aware of how you are evaluated by others and what they are going to be judging you on. It is for this reason that many people are taking the time to write their own essays. They do it so that they will be able to come up with a much better idea about themselves and their abilities.The first thing that you need to do is to find out if you can actually write a self assessment essay. If you are just a regular college student or somebody who just has started to go to college, chances are that you have never written a personal essay before. And you really should because it can really help you when you are writing your own. However, if you do not want to write a personal essay and you do not have any kind of skill with the English language, you can always hire somebody to write it for you. This way, you will be able to be in control of the essays as w ell as where it is going to end up being published.When you are looking for self assessment essay samples to help you with your writing, make sure that you choose those that are going to help you do your essay. After all, you do not want to get into a situation where you do not have the information that you need. In that case, you will not be able to properly write your essay.The next and final point that you should be concerned with is that the sample you are using should not take too long to read. You need to be able to get through it within a few minutes. This is so that you will not get bogged down with all of the reading material that you have to read. That will mean that you will end up not having the information that you need and therefore you will not be able to get through the essay as fast as you would like.Now, when you are looking for self assessment essay samples to help you with your writing, make sure that you find the ones that are going to give you some information and examples. They will also be able to show you some different ways of how you can improve on your essay. Then, you will be able to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are. These can help you to see what areas you need to work on and what things you need to learn.One last thing that you should keep in mind is that when you are writing your self assessment essay, you need to focus on what you should be getting out of the whole experience. After all, you do not want to focus on the mistakes that you made and the mistakes that others may have made. Instead, you should focus on how you are going to make them all up so that you can make sure that you can write the best essay that you can. So, you should look for all of these different things when you are looking for your self assessment essay samples.All in all, the time that you spend on looking for self assessment essay samples can be well worth it. These can really help you focus on what you are going to write in the essay. I n addition, they can help you know more about yourself and where you are going to be heading with your life.