Ten Tips For Every Writer to Remember

We can be writing junkies, but it is important to take care of what we do with our writing. In other words, sometimes we need reminders. The reminders will not apply to everyone; some of these things go hand-in-hand for many writers. They may not struggle with what others do. Still, one of these should apply to just about every writer in the world, give or take a few thousand.

1. Find a Theme- Theme is in fiction, right? That is what you're trying to say. The answer is a big NO. Theme is found in everything that is meant for others. That means the articles we write and of course the novel.

2. Begin Somewhere - No matter where we are in our writing, we must begin before anything can happen. The bomb won't go off unless we light the fuse. Do not wait for the muse.

3. Find the small story - This has been told to no end: small stories move a piece. Read it in any how-to-write book and you will see this.

4. Find intriguing characters - What's the point if they die in the first chapter? What if we don't care they died in the first place? A reader must care or at least relate to a character.

5. Consider it a puzzle - Writing a fiction piece is like putting a puzzle together. We have to find the pieces that fit right in place. If one scene does not work, we employ Hemingway's iceberg theory: anything can be cut.

6. Build the imagination - Imagination should be fun. Writers are the types of people who will either be floating on cloud nine with their imagination or trying to jump back on that cloud. We can build an imagination by reading.

7. Read everything and anything - Reading the same sorts of books will not help the imagination. If you like science read crime. If you like super hero graphic novels read a historical fiction novel .The point is to expand your horizons.

8. Write it all down - Before anything, we have to write something down. We not only begin somewhere, but we employ strategies in making the next day easier. We do not write ourselves into a character by forcing things upon the character.

9. Study markets - We can dream all we want, but research junkies make it. If we are serious about the fiction or non-fiction career (or both) we will need a steady diet of the magazines we want to be published in.

10. You have to submit - Orson Scott Card had an interesting take on this aspect of writing in one of his how-to-write books. He said that we should submit what we have. We do not wait for it to be perfect, or wait until next year. The reason is next year we will want to work on something else.