Are you ready to be a professional writer?
For the last two years, I’ve been writing a story, article or script every week that has either gone on air or been published. I wrote for Sesame Street, Cartoon Network, a show on Disney Channel (India) and a comic book venture, all at the same time. I also began, and re-began and re-re-began my novel.
If writing’s a hobby, this sounds grand — what better job than to scribble stories and get paid for it? But when deadlines loom, inspiration and glamour go right out the window, leaving a royal mess behind. At that point, really all there is to do is to GET THE DAMN THING WRITTEN.
Only, here’s the catch — simply getting it written isn’t good enough! Not when the bar and stakes are higher than when you’re writing for a personal blog or in your diary. [Side Note: if you’re a natural genius, that’s wonderful for you. Congratulations. Please ignore this article and think of me when you’re winning your Pulitzer. But for the rest of us who are emphatically notgeniuses, learning the basics can elevate amateur writing to ‘competent’ and even ‘good’.]
So, here are some time-tested ways that help me write good quality stories regularly –
- Write One True Sentence
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Doable, right?
Think — what do you know for sure? What have you understood of life? What do you believe? And then — how have you arrived at that knowledge? There’s your emotionally-charged, authentic story!
For example, one of the best scripts I wrote was for Sesame Street(India) — an episode on how to deal with jealousy. I have struggled, and still do struggle, with jealousy all the time, and I know how it feels, what triggers it, why I feel that way AND exactly what helped me cope. Translate that emotion and journey into a story and voilà!
2. Show up. Everyday.
“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” — Ray Bradbury.
Write when you’re tired. Write when you’re sleepy. Write when you’re overworked. Write nonsense, but write. Exercise your writing/editing/revising muscle so it’s ready for heavy-lifting.
Don’t worry too much about crappy first drafts. Most first drafts are terrible — that’s why I love revisions. Awful first drafts “magically” morph into decent second drafts and even (gasp!) good third drafts.
Put one word after another, then revise every word over and over. It’s that easy, and that hard.
3. Protect your Writing Time
“The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg.” — J. K. Rowling
Protect your writing time — either allocate a fixed time for writing everyday or decide on a target daily or weekly word count. Say ‘no’ when friends tell you to postpone your work till after dinner/movie/cocktails/gossip. You’re an adult — if you don’t respect your work and your timings, nobody else will.
4. Learn the Language — Grammar, Syntax, Sentence Construction, Word Usage
I cannot stress this enough. As headwriter on a TV show, there have been countless times I rejected good stories because of the sheer work needed to understand them. Sloppy grammar, incorrect word usage and confusing sentence construction just make you more difficult (and slightly annoying) to work with. Respect the reader of your story enough to do your homework.
Please, use a dictionary if you are not sure of the meaning of a word. There are even word usage dictionaries available for free online. You could also pick up a grammar or composition textbook to brush up on your language skills. I personally love Strunk and White’s ‘The Elements of Style’ and Steven Pinker’s hilarious ‘The Sense of Style.’
I understand that this exercise sounds painful and, frankly, dull. But trust me – once you get into it, it becomes kind of fun, and your prose will be the clearer and the livelier for it.
5. Format
Another “un-artistic” bullet to bite. You can find formatting conventions for scripts, novels, comic books, poetry and so on by doing a simple google search. Formatting softwares are available online (Celtx is free, Scrivener and Final Draft are slightly expensive. Jeffrey Scott’s cool blog even explains how to format a script on Microsoft Word itself). Good formatting indicates you are a professional and will just make it easier for you to sell your story.
6. Study Storytelling
You could enrol in a writing course or read one of the countless great books on storytelling. I personally learnt on the job and by devouring books on storytelling, and would strongly recommend getting an internship, submitting pieces for feedback and reading some (or all) of the following –
‘Story’ by Robert McKee
‘Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters’ by Michael Tierno
‘The Art of Dramatic Writing’ by Lajos Egri
‘Writing the Breakout Novel’ by Donald Maass
It’s also amazing how much you can learn simply by ‘reading like a writer’. What does that mean? Well, it means that whenever you read a book or article, or watch a TV show or movie that you love, you analyse –
- What you liked about it — the conflict, the emotion, the pace, the build-up, the twist in the tale, the characters etc
- How it was done — how is it plotted? Why are the characters interesting? How do they grow? How is emotion shown without dialogue? Why is the climax so hard-hitting? How is the dialogue written? What has the writer done to immerse you in the world of the story — does the writer describe not just the location but the sounds and smells as well? Does the protagonist’s story resonate with you? Why? How are scenes defined? When does the ‘exciting part’ start?
[If you’re writing poetry, do read not just poetry but also how to write poetry. I recommend Stephen Fry’s rollicking ‘The Ode Less Travelled’.]
“Read everything–trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out.” — William Faulkner
7. Feedback Strategy: PICK. YOUR. BATTLES.
Ah, feedback — the bane of a writer’s life. The clichéd but very real nightmare.
Here’s the straight dope — feedback is mostly helpful, often hurtful, sometimes, sadly, moronic and mostly a matter of choosing your battles.
The first thing to remember is — if you’re writing for someone else’s show/publication, their vision trumps yours. It is finally their show to run, and their call to make. By all means argue if you feel strongly about something, but I would not dig my hells in, declare “I am Tolkein!” and insist that not a word I write can be changed. Feedback is often subjective and annoying, but that is just the way it is. And I often find that when I accept feedback (especially from someone with a different perspective — a visual artist, a director, a lyricist etc) my story becomes far richer.
However, if you’re writing something more personal (for example, a novel or a personal narrative), listen to advice with an open mind —there are some truly great editors out there — but ultimately it is your story, and your decision. (It is also equally the editor’s decision to accept or reject your story! So, normally, a compromise of sorts is reached.)
8. Read
Read. Read. Read. Read fiction, read non-fiction. Read stories from across the world. Read children’s books. Read outside your genre. Read things that inspire you, trigger memories and raise questions.
“The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one’s papers and identification pretty much in order. Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mind-set, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor. . .” –Stephen King
9. Write from the Senses
Writing comes alive when you use your senses. Good writers describe locations not just visually, but also by their smells, textures, moods and sounds.
I often find a terrific writing prompt is the memory of a sense. Try and capture a specific scent or taste from your past, the texture of a hand, cloth or wooden floorboard in your old house, a faded photograph, music etc. What emotions do they trigger?
Childhood memories are particularly vivid, full of sensory detail. For example, I recently made a list of all the places I remembered from my school. All of a sudden, I could feel the coarse corduroy of the mustard-coloured curtains that hung in the dorm. I had hidden behind those curtains one afternoon, after being told to keep my ‘different’ Indian food away from the common dining hall. And a kind teacher had stood up for me.
And just like that, from deep, repressed memory, an emotional, immersive story was born.
10. Be Honest
Claw at the insides of your heart, at the things you would rather other people did not see. Then write them down.
Being a writer is, tragically, not even close to this wonderful image most people have. It is not gazing out of the window in your cabin in the woods, downing cocktails and wowing listeners at launch parties, enigmatic, profound, shocking and dreamy. If it is for you, then that’s great! I envy and am a little terrified of you, you glorious, mythical creature. Because, to me, writing is more like slowly stripping off the ratty old pyjamas that are my work clothes and then running down the street naked, waving my innermost fears, darkness and happiness for everyone to see.
It’s awful.
And fantastic.
The day there’s a grain of deep truth in your writing, you’ll know what you’ve written is good. Hopefully, so will publishers. But I have a feeling that, at that glorious point in time, what other people think won’t matter so much. You’ll be writing the best sort of writing there is — you’ll be writing for you.
“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself…That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right.” — Neil Gaiman
Good luck!
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