Writing Writing Tips you haven’t heard before

 

Are you a writer? Or willing to become a writer?

You must be tired of the old typical writing tips. Aren’t you?

Consider the following tips:

Practice your writing skills by daily writing
Choose the best time of the day to write
Try to avoid Facebook, email, or other social media sites while writing
Set a timer to speed up your writing

These are some typical writing tips, you’ve heard of them many times. They’re tested and implemented. As a result, you’ll see whether you’ve already tried these tips – or you’ve not found these tips to help because they didn’t work for you.

Now you want some new and different tips to make your writing better.

You might have tried a lot to find out some interesting – yet useful writing tips, but all in vain.

Well, the wait is over!!!

Here in this article, we’re discussing the 10 writing tips you absolutely won’t have heard before.

These tips cover almost everything about writing, from new ideas to proofreading the final product.

Here we go…

Tip 1: Keep an Obsessively Detailed Log Book

Keep a record of your writing in a notebook or word document.

You might include:

The date and day when you started writing
Start time and end time to analyze how long you wrote
How much you wrote – length of the post or number of words
Your feelings before, during, and at the end of the writing duration
Any useful or new thing learned for the future – like always write before any other work
You may think of it as extra work. But it only takes 3 minutes of your precious time.

Maintaining a log book is really a critical tool to becoming an effective writer.

After a couple of weeks, analyze your log book and look out for patterns. For example, you may analyze that you seem to be more productive and write more during the morning time than the afternoon. So now you decided to always write in the morning time.

Tip 2: Just Open the Damn Document (Then Keep Going)

Well if you’ve to write a piece of content like a long post, you would be freaking out by looking at its length. Because it is not easy, to sum up the motivation to get started and to pick up after some time.

Follow this tip: Tell yourself “I’m just opening the damn document”.

Seriously it’s too easy. Just open the document and wait for some seconds.

Now, aim to write just one sentence.

Only one sentence. It is like a push-up.

Then aim to finish at least one paragraph and so on.

You’ll see, after a couple of minutes your unwillingness to start off has vanished away and you’re actually writing. There may be a chance that in this way, you’ll get more work done than if you start by saying “I’ve to work for an hour or so”.

In the end, if you end up writing only a paragraph or a sentence, you still have done an awesome job. After all, you had decided only to open the document.

Tip 3: Use Fire to Spark Your Imagination

You always need a timer while writing, that will push you to write fast as the time is ticking away.

Here is another tip: lighting a candle when you’re writing

That is light a candle when you sit for writing. Fire has all sorts of resonances for writers.

A flame offers a focal point too. A flame can act as a gentle reminder of your intention, it’ll remind you to spend your time on working something meaningful.

Tip 4: Throw Linear Writing Out of the Window

While writing, one place where writers are always stuck is in between the first draft and the initial plan for the article. When you’ve your first draft, you’ve got the starting point.

If you’re facing difficulty working on the first draft, use it differently. It is not necessary that you always start from the first line to the end of the article. You can jump in wherever you like.

For example, you’ve created the final structure of your article – might be a list of subheadings. There is no need to work from beginning to end.

Instead of writing the introduction first, you may move on to the first heading or the fifth one – whichever you prefer.

Many writers have problems in writing the introduction and mostly they get stuck at this point showing reluctance to continue. Following the above way will make it easy for every writer to get a quick start.

But at the end, make sure that your article must be in the correct flow, you can edit your article afterward for this purpose. So, there is really no issue with this arbitrary way of writing the article.

Tip 5: Break Familiar Patterns by Switching Media

Sometimes your thoughts aren’t reflecting the first draft of the article you created earlier.

Are you fed up of writing the article in the same way of typing?

How about switching to a different medium for writing?

You can bring your thoughts into existence in different ways:

One way is to use a pen and paper. You couldn’t even find a single reason of not using the old way of writing to write your article. This process is way too different and you become more productive while writing the words instead of tapping keys. You become more focused on your words and think well.

The second way is to use your phone to write your article, in case pen and paper don’t work for you. Though on phone, you might not be able to type fast it can surely change your writing style. You can type your post/article while focusing on the reader’s experience too because the majority of them will be reading on phones or tablets.

The third way is to dictate. It means speaking instead of typing or writing the article. This way can prove to be the best one, in case you want to be more conversational in your article.

A fast writer can write up to 1,000 words in an hour; dictation can get you that far in just 10 minutes.

Tip 6: “Tie Your Hands” with an Artificial Restriction

If you’re stuck while writing the post, you can try using an artificial restriction to closely examine your word choices. For example:

Avoid words containing the letter “E”.

The first sentence of your article must start with the letter “A”, then the second sentence with the letter “B” and so on. When you’re done with the letter “Z”, you can move backward or start again from the letter “A”.
Each sentence must contain no more than eight words.
Avoid adjectives or adverbs
Use random words in your post
You can use the restriction instead of editing the article. Restriction won’t give you any results in the first draft. Use it in the development process and it will turn your writing in a new direction.

Tip 7: When Brainstorming Use “Maybe”

While writing, sometimes you’re not sure about some thoughts and ideas. Instead of making them a fact you can use “maybe” with your thought or idea to freely jot them down.

Keep two things in mind:

Instead of trying to throw definite ideas at the page, deliberately loosen up.
Instead of making decisions, play around with possibilities.
The best way to achieve this is to add the word “maybe”. For instance

Maybe include a Q&A section in my weekly newsletter…
Maybe write a series of posts on…
Using the word “maybe” makes you free of the things you’re feeling unsure about. You won’t be held responsible for such things, because you made them a suggestion or a possibility by adding “maybe”.

Tip 8: Challenge Yourself to Write in Weird Places

Every writer needs a comfortable and relaxing place to write the post so that he can think of new ideas. Everyone has his/her own favorite places. Similarly, there must be a place where you (as a writer) find yourself comfortable and feels like writing. It might be any place, your bedroom, on a desk in the open air or a coffee shop, etc.

But the fact is, you can’t be at your favorite place always.

Even if you don’t like to write in places other than your favorite ones, try this out.

You may realize that the fear of writing in a new place will give you new and different ideas.

Try writing:

In a park, while sitting on a bench
In your car – proves helpful during a traffic jam, waiting to pick up someone
In a blanket fort
Anywhere while you’re waiting – at the dentist’s clinic or in the kitchen while waiting for food to cook
Must share your experience in the comments, if you’ve written at the weirdest place ever.

Tip 9: “Top and Tail” Your Writing

This is really a simple and easy tip, you might think if it actually works.

Yes, it does..

Worth trying it!!

When you complete your initial draft, cut the first and last paragraph from the draft. Then check if it is stronger and working fine without them.

Mostly it does work fine. If no, then cut out just the first and last sentence instead.

If the draft is long enough, then cut the first and last paragraph along with the first sentence of all the other paragraphs.

You might be confused that why does this work?

Actually, sometimes the first paragraph of the post is just a warm-up paragraph that doesn’t reflect much. Often, you come to the main point in the second paragraph.

The same is the case with the last paragraph. When you finish a post, stopping and summing up sooner makes a more powerful ending.

Tip 10: Stop Seeking Approval – Focus on One Good Enemy

This tip is mainly derived from the article “One Good Enemy” by Holly Lisle. Every blogger should read this article for motivation.

The essence of this article is that

“Never wish to have a person who is always there to support you, instead what you really need is someone who will compete with you or whom you want to prove wrong”.

This is just a simple theory.

When someone says that you can’t do it, you get determined to prove them wrong.

Similarly, when you would have an enemy in writing posts, you’ll always try to write fast and deliver good content. This will surely increase your productivity.

In writing, your enemy might be a competitor blogger or someone who left a horrible comment on your blog. It might be your brother or your boss.

Take the Road Less Traveled and See Your Writing Soar
The Internet is full of advice regarding writing, you can also consult with writing experts.

But they are of no use until you will actually do something with them.

To become a good writer – or to grow your blog – doesn’t need you to be a superhuman.

All you need to do is to write. Keep changing your writing and writing styles unless they start working well for you.

You can start with the above-mentioned tips one by one and see the results.