Great Advice from Great Writers

Given the length of time I’ve been writing, I’ve picked up some useful advice from other authors. Here is a distillation of the best.

One: Keep regular habits.

Full-time authors can write from nine to five. The rest of us have to approach it like a part-time job. So know what hours suit you best, what time you have available, and then show up for work. Hemmingway wrote from 5AM to midday. Yukio Mishima wrote for two hours after midnight. But they always turned up. They didn’t wait for inspiration, they met it at their desks.

Two: Don’t write in isolation.

Writers benefit from the company of other creative people. They talk your language, they always have useful information, and sometimes they introduce you to important contacts. It’s just easier to talk about writing with another writer. Don’t be afraid to share your work with them, plagiarism is rare. Network, make friends among the community. Signings, talks, conventions, festivals. Get to as many as possible. Above all, aim to be the sort of useful person that you would hope to meet.

Three: Read.

Read as much as possible, read as widely as possible, and think about what you read. Look at the bestseller lists and new authors, too. Keep up to date with who is producing what. Your work will not get compared to writers from twenty years ago, but to writers producing now. The only way to stay original is to know what’s out there. But writers should love books anyway. It’s not stealing, it’s learning. The more people you learn from, the more original your own work will be.

Four: Stop so you can start again.

When your allotted time is up, put down your pen and stop. Mid-paragraph if need be. That way when you start again, you know exactly where to pick up. Hemmingway talked about "the well of creativity." If you drain it, you get writer's block. If you allow it to refill, you will always have plenty to draw on. Stopping when you finish a chapter is very satisfying but it’s better to get a little way into the next one. Anthony Trollope used to write for two hours before his work at the Post Office and, the story goes, he finished a novel halfway through. What did he do? Got a clean piece of paper and started the next one straight away!

Five: Write as well as you can the first time.

If you "sketch scenes out" you cover a lot of ground. That can be really satisfying because you see the story thundering onwards. But you’ve created your own hell when it comes to re-writing. Everything is a shanty town of unfinished paragraphs that need to be repaired. Ian Fleming wasn’t a perfectionist and he often found it hard to keep going because he hated what he had just written. So even if you seem to be going slowly, get it as right as possible the first time, paragraph by paragraph. The other thing is to try to be better today than you were yesterday. Don’t write just to get words on the page. Work at your craft.

Six: Read your work over.

When you start work the day, read your text over from the beginning, then put pen to paper. That way it will all flow together. If you have written so much that this becomes impossible, go from the start of the chapter and work from there, but re-read everything at least once a week. That keeps you on track and makes everything feel like the same story.

Seven: Keep the language simple and the ideas clear.

A good story doesn’t need fancy words, it just needs the right ones. Same with the story ideas. To quote from Stephen King: "I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose."

Eight: Write the stuff that hurts.

The biggest problem writers have is making a connection with an audience. This is especially true in any fiction which steps outside everyday experience. It was sad when Mog died because we’ve all lost a pet and could relate. If it feels uncomfortable to write about, it’s going to connect better with an audience. That’s the real reason for Stephen King’s success—he was always writing about himself, not some made up character. He was trying to live with being Jack Torrance and that makes for uncomfortable reading. J.P. Donleavy put it beautifully: “Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.”

Nine: Live!

Writing is a great way of processing your experiences, but it’s also a pretty insular hobby. This is not good. When you put your pen down for the day, go and do something else. Preferably physical. Do not think about writing. The Japanese talk about "the harmony of pen and sword." It’s not a bad way to look at it. Hemingway fished, Fleming went snorkelling, Mishima went to the gym or the Dojo. They all lived really interesting lives that they examined through their writing. Anais Nin said: “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” True, true.

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing, but that’s OK. Regard it as a holiday. When you return to your work it will have matured and you will see new things in it. You will spot themes that you were too close to see first time around. And never, ever say—"I had the chance to go shark hunting on a square rigger, but there wouldn’t be anywhere to plug in my laptop, so I didn’t go."

Ten: "Keep what you write on the market until it’s sold."

Writing something no one reads is pointless. Get it published. Whether that’s a school magazine or a best-selling novel, the principal is the same. Put it where an audience can see it. That helps you make contacts and just makes you feel good that people like your stuff. Cuttings impress editors. Don’t be afraid to start small and work up.

Actually, I could have boiled this whole essay down to what Stephen King said:

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”