Tips for writers 1
The first set of our new pages of tips for writers
Improve your writing
- Think about the market for your book. Research the category and
read widely to see what other published writers in this area are doing. Which
writers are successful and why? Visit bookshops and analyse what you find
there. If you are reading this you are probably already writing, but it really
is worth thinking right from the beginning about your readers, as that makes
it far more likely you’ll eventually find them.
- Be prepared to redraft your work and to rethink it. Many new
writers assume that their work will immediately be ready for publication, but
the truth is that many highly successful writers produced several drafts of
their first work before they got it published.
- When you’ve got your work into the best state you can, put it on one
side for a few weeks and then look at it afresh. You’ll be amazed what
difference a fresh eye will make.
- Before you send it to anyone, use a spellchecker and read it through
carefully looking for textual errors rather than reading for sense.
Publishers and agents are literate people and will find illiterate work
off-putting. If you can, get a critical friend to read it carefully for
you. There are plenty of basic grammar and spelling books which can help you
get this right.
- Finally, it’s worth thinking about getting some professional editorial
help from an organisation such as WritersServies, but make sure they are
reputable as otherwise this could be a waste of money and even quite
disheartening. You need honesty and constructive criticism. What a
professional editor can do is give you the kind of detached overview of your
work which it is very difficult for you to achieve for yourself. Naturally you
don’t have the editorial expertise, but you are also much too close to your
work to be able to see it clearly. After all, you’ve invested many hundreds of
hours of work in it and it is your baby!
Chris Holifield
See also An Editor's Advice on
doing further
drafts and
manuscript presentation
Writersbookstall
titles on grammar
Tips for Writers 2: Learn on the
job
Tips for Writers 3: New
technology and the Internet
Tips for Writers 4:
Self-publishing - is it for you?
Tips for Writers 5: Promoting your writing (and
yourself)
Tips
for writers 6: Other kinds of writing
Tips
for writers 7: Keep up to date
Tips
for writers 8: Submission to publishers and agents
© Chris Holifield 2008-9
