Top 5 Pieces of Advice For New Writers, From An Editor
A couple years ago, I was tasked with scripting a training at work. I had never done copywriting along those lines before, and I felt out of my depth. When I told my supervisor I was struggling with the project, she said, “We can’t edit when nothing’s on the page. All we need is something to react to.”
This phrase stuck with me—something to react to. I’ve learned over the years that the first draft doesn’t have to be good; in fact, it will rarely ever be good. Some people focus closely when writing their first draft, rereading and editing over and over, before the piece is finished. But that approach has never worked for me, because I get stuck in an endless loop of rereading and editing, and the piece stays in a perpetual state of disarray without ever being finished.
Years and years ago, I told a friend I was having this issue, and he said, “When you sit down to write, don’t look back on what’s previously written. Just write.”
This was the first lesson I had to learn as a writer: Just write. The purpose of the first draft is to get the story out of your head and onto the paper. Then, once that is done, you have something to actually edit and keep the process moving; you have something to react to.
As I’ve continued in the writing and editing world, I’ve gathered a few pieces of advice that might be helpful to new writers. I see these mistakes happening over and over again, across all kinds of writers and various types of stories. Everybody has their own writing process, and you should always explore what works best for you. As you do that, try to integrate these top five tips into your writing process, and they may just transform your writing journey.
TIP ONE: Don’t worry too much about the first draft
The purpose of a first draft is not to be good. It can be difficult to wrap our heads around this concept, especially as a new writer. But try to see your first draft as a playground: explorative, curious, and messy. The purpose of a first draft is to get all the story parts out of your head and onto the paper. The real magic comes from the editing of the first draft; that’s when the story starts to come into its own and the characters’ experiences take shape. But that editing can’t happen if there aren’t any words on the page.
Which leads me to…
TIP TWO: Beware the sunk cost fallacy
The sunk cost fallacy is the desire to keep something the way it is because you've spent a lot of time on it. In reality, good books go through multiple revisions that change fundamental parts of the story. Just because something is written doesn't mean it needs to stay. For a lot of authors, writing extra details into the first draft is necessary to help them make sense of their own world and characters, but then they're hesitant to remove it when it's necessary. The reader doesn’t care how much time you spent on any particular passage; all the reader cares about is that the story that ends up in their hands is engaging and keeps them interested.
TIP THREE: Don’t go with the first thought
Writing early drafts is an act of brainstorming. Just like with the sunk cost fallacy, something does not need to stay just because it's written. Use what's written as a jumping off point to fine-tune the ideas and come up with more interesting things. This applies to character details, backstory, plot elements, and anything in a story that can be improved. Explore all the possibilities for how to keep your characters on their toes and add surprise to the story; usually, the first idea is the most boring one.
TIP FOUR: What is the character’s motivation?
The one thing that controls the movement of a book is the character's motivations and how they engage with the world in relation to their motivations. Every character wants something, whether that’s to get ice cream after work or to overthrow the government. Maybe they want everything to go back to normal after the inciting incident; they want to keep the status quo, but that’s still a motivation that allows them to make decisions and react to what happens in the story. When character motivations aren’t clear, the reader feels like the story is going nowhere. If the character doesn’t want anything, then they have no reason to do anything.
TIP FIVE: “The But Principle”
Every good book has a series of buts that keep the character from reaching their goals. Essentially, these are the obstacles that stand in-between the character and what they want. In Red, White, and Royal Blue, the two main characters want to get over with their visit to the children’s hospital and finally be rid of each other, but they’re thrown into a closet during an emergency, causing them to bond and jumpstarting the rest of the plot. In Catching Fire, Katniss has just won The Hunger Games and wants to live a quiet, calm life, but she now has to placate President Snow and hold off a revolution. These obstacles are what create and keep the tension; this is how things happen in a story. Nobody wants to read a book where the character gets everything they want as soon as they want it. Making the goal hard to reach and unpredictable is what creates a page-turning story. Using the lesson from Tip Three—don’t go with the first thought—explore these buts and be willing to change them for the sake of making the story more interesting.
If you start with these five tips, you’ll be on your way to getting a first draft finished, and then you can start the process of editing to dig deep into the heart of the story—which is what the editing process is for.
