Expect to write rubbish in amongst the gems. Don’t let the thought of that hold you back. Write, write, write. Edit, edit, edit. They are two separate tasks. Don’t try to combine them. You need to give the creative side of your brain full rein before bringing in the editor’s side. This is where giving yourself time after writing a piece of work before editing it pays off. It’s very easy to think something’s rubbish the moment you’ve written it but if you give it a few weeks, it may not appear to be as bad as you thought. Accept all this takes time. Don’t rush it. Your writing deserves the best you can give.
Proverbs
Proverbs are an excellent source of story ideas. Listen to how other people speak - both on TV and on the street. Does your story follow an arc of beginning, middle and end? Does enough happen in it? I have to watch that I don’t put too much dialogue in as I love writing it (and indeed reading it in other authors’ work). Do you know your characters well enough to write convincingly about them? Some authors do character biographies. I haven’t but I do like to know the chief trait (in Eileen’s case stubbornness, an uncanny ability to drop herself right in it). Pictures from magazines can be useful for starting you off with ideas for physical appearance - always use in general terms. You don’t want anyone recognizing themselves. Not everyone’s flattered to be included in book.
Reading Your Own Work
Read work out loud, particularly dialogue, to hear if it sounds right. If you trip over it, your readers will. Reading it silently on screen or on paper isn’t the same - you’ll just read it but hearing it will show up the faults.
Vital Books
Get a copy of Brewer’s Phrase and Fable. It’s fascinating and may well inspire several ideas.
You must have a good dictionary and thesaurus. Don’t rely on the computer’s spell checker. It doesn’t differentiate between there and their, for example. The grammar check doesn’t allow for your character names and I’ve found it irritating to have my characters all underlined in red/green! I know they’re correctly spelled, thank you!
Do update your Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook annually. Things change quickly.
Reading From A Variety of Sources
Read inside and outside your chosen genre. Not only is it a great joy, inspiration for your own tales can come from many sources. Something usually outside what you do may well strengthen your work or give you ideas you may not have come across if you’d stuck to just reading in a narrow category.
Character Balance
Make sure you’ve got the right balance of characters in your work. Too many humorous characters or whatever tip your work. Humour always works best when shown up against something else in any case. Wodehouse’s Wooster wouldn’t be funny if he hadn’t various odious aunts to outwit. Also Wooster, whilst rightly acknowledging Jeeves as a genius, is not totally dimwitted. Ensure your characters aren’t either. Each of your creations must have something positive going for them or you won’t get reader sympathy.
Do your characters change their minds? Do they hesitate? Do they find their original purpose isn’t what they thought and they need to adjust it or need to adjust what they do? Give your characters hell! It’s fun! And makes for better writing! What’s there not to like about that? Your characters should have friends and enemies. Relationships complicate plot which is all to the good as far as you’re concerned. You want your characters not to have an easy time of it!