Hello everyone and welcome to Writing 101. I am your host Nick, or I go online as Silver, and I have been a journalist going on three years and I wanted to pass on some writing tips to all of you.
Writing comes with the ability to tell a story that captures the minds and hearts of everyone around you. Having that sense of creativity is essential in the art of writing.
Storytelling is the activity of telling, writing, or reading stories. This skill has existed since the dawn of time as books and myths are stories that are passed down from generations.
Being able to paint a picture whether it is to set a scene in creative writing or to describe a person if you are doing a profile piece in journalism having this sense of journalism is essential to make any boring story come to life.
I was listening to a podcast called Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedatnam and he discussed the importance of family stories. Family stories are how most of us started understanding the concept of storytelling.
Most times me and my family would meet at the end of the day, and we catch up with stories as we sat together for dinner at the kitchen table. It’s something that continues to remain alive in our current world and got me interested in being a storyteller later in the future.
Family is what helped me develop a love for telling my own stories and wanting to tell those stories about others. It is a pushing inspiration anytime
Here are three tips I think everyone needs to start being a good storyteller and writer.
Add Color Through Verbs Not Adjectives
In my time writing so far, I have gotten destroyed as a journalist and a creative writer because of this mistake. Sometimes longer sentences don’t always mean higher quality. Verbs paint a better picture instead of using adjectives.
Writing is timeless and we want people to continue to share and pass on the stories. According to the book Zarella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness, written by Dan Zarella, he discovered that the more complex the language is clashes with the number of shares a story gets.
It makes sense if people talk in confusing language with big words that most of us might not grasp at first, it takes away from the user experience of immersing oneself into a story.
Be Willing to Edit
The hardest part about the writing side can be sitting down and editing a story. It is a long, painful process that requires a lot of effort. One tip that can be very helpful for any aspiring writers is to take a break, come back later and read the story out loud.
Being able to sit down and read the story later helps with getting a fresh mindset instead of trying to edit after spending all day writing. Trying to attack the editing and writing process simultaneously is likely to result in more mistakes, and after a while, you could get burned out.
Go for a run, take some photos, play some games, talk with some friends, and use that time to get your mind away from reading and correcting mistakes. It will give your brain a chance to mentally reset so when you go to sit down and make corrections it will help in making a well-made story.
Reading the story out loud has been a process I also found helpful. The process of editing can take multiple tries, and you might not know what mistakes you are making reading it quietly in your head. Reading from top to bottom out loud in a private space, lets your ears hear what might not sound correct.
Take it One Step at a Time
Writing can feel like a daunting process on where to start and we often forget the real importance of writing in any sense is to tell a story. Don’t treat it as trying to meet a deadline but trying to meet a goal for you on that day.
It takes time and spacing it out within a deadline helps you monitor your progress while making sure you are putting in strong details. The story will get done if you are committed to keeping writing, so always keep your head up.
Writing is a hard process if it were so easy then everyone would be writing for magazines and publishing books. It isn’t an easy process it takes time, creativity and passion so being able to take it one page, one chapter or one story at a time can help with avoiding burnout which is the biggest killer of creativity.
Hopefully, this article provided a good insight into the world of developing into a good writer and a great storyteller. Writing is a very satisfying process when done correctly. It tells stories, inspires minds, and forms beliefs that will last a lifetime.
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