You, as a writer, need certain tools. I’m going to share several golden nuggets with you that I’ve gleaned over the course of my career as a professional writer and editor. We’ll cover physical and emotional things, some practical techniques, and there’s at least one absolutely, must-have, non-negotiable essential.
1. Resilience
So, you know that writing something like a novel is a long haul. It often takes years.
The area where you’ll really need resilience though, is if your work gets… out there.
Say you have something published: a short story or even a novel. You could be lucky enough to be reviewed. But that can go either way. And being negatively reviewed can be a painful experience particularly if you’re new to the game.
Now I’m going to tell you straight: brace yourself. If all your reviews are fab, then that’s great. But if you do get negative reviews, whatever happens, don’t respond.
Don’t dwell on it.
Don’t beat yourself up.
Just keep writing.
And what you do is you try and spot any positives there might be, even in a bad review.
So, for example, reviews for my first novel referenced some things I was aware of but thought I might get away with. I thought maybe no one would notice these things.
What I’ve learned is — people always notice!
Value feedback from people you trust. People you trust to be honest with you.
Your mum isn’t one of them, okay?
If you’re lucky enough to reach a professional level as a writer, then your agent and editor are the only people you should listen to. Most of all though, you trust your gut instinct.
2. Patience
Writing can be a long game, but it’s also a slow business especially when things are out of our hands.
Say you’ve submitted your masterpiece to an agent or publisher. Other than acknowledgement of receipt, if you’re lucky, they can take months to get it back to you.
If it does take that long, it doesn’t mean your work is bad. This is just a very slow and traditional business, and it takes time for an agent or editor to fully appraise your work properly. And you want them to do that.
So what do you do while you’re waiting?
You forget about it and work on something else.
3. Connections
Being a professional writer means working with people. Working with people requires connection, respect and trust. And that works both ways.
I don’t believe you can make a personal connection with someone online.
LinkedIn isn’t going to get you a book deal.
A Zoom meeting is not the same as buying someone lunch.
You might make some kind of contact online. But for a real connection, a genuine working relationship, you need to meet in person.
You need to shake hands, look each other in the eye, talk about stuff other than work. What have you got in common? What interests do you share?
They need to know you’re someone they can work with.
If you write in a particular genre, then there may well be conventions you can go to.
Make the effort, go the extra mile. People recognise this. Consider any cost you might incur an investment in your career.
Talking about connections…
4. You Won’t Like It
Many years ago when I was first starting out, before I’d been published, I started corresponding with the novelist Christopher Priest. He’s won many awards and written some of my favourite books. His novel The Prestige was made into a movie by Chris Nolan.
Now, Chris eventually became a friend and introduced me to my first agent. But before that, over the course of our correspondence, he gave me several really useful pieces of advice.
And this one… I’ll say to you what he said to me at the time:
You won’t like it.
What he said to me was this: when you finish the first draft you print it, delete the electronic file, and then re-key the whole thing.
What, like type it all in again?!
He was right, I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like it so much I didn’t do it for a long time.
But when I did try it, I knew he was right. You’ve already done the really hard work in writing the first draft. Now it’s time for a full-on, real-deal, old-school redraft.
This re-keying business might sound tedious, but it doesn’t take as long as you might think. By doing this, you revisit what you’ve already written.
But because you’ve already written it, you know what’s going to follow. And because you know what happens later, you can plant seeds. Write in little clues how the story is going to progress. A character might say something or do something that underpins a development later on. You might decide to change something completely.
At the very least, you’ll rewrite those sentences in a way that makes them sound better.
You print this thing of yours.
You hold it in your hand.
Then you take a red pen to it.
Then, when you’ve edited this text, you re-key it.
Trust me, this really works.
One of my biggest takeaways from this process is that if I find a section boring to re-key, then the audience is going to find it boring to read, so it probably needs cutting.
And if you really want to do this real-deal, old-school, full-on redraft properly you’ll consider my next tip.
5. Ssh!
When you’re rewriting and editing, say your work aloud.
If you stumble over sentences when you’re saying them, re-write them until they trip off the tongue.
Reading silently to ourselves, we’re kind of just absorbing the words, just downloading it into our mind. When we actually have to verbalise the words, the brain processes them differently.
Like the re-key, this really works. And paired with the Rekey, it’s a really powerful tool. I guarantee you’ll be surprised by the difference it makes to your writing.
And now for the tip I consider absolutely non-negotiable.
6. 😉
Command of punctuation.
OK, so this doesn’t sound glamorous or sexy, and you might be tempted to skip this part of the video, but you need this more than any other tip at this stage, probably.
Let’s take commas as a simple example. They’re little things, but a missing comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence.
A lot of people think you put a comma at a point in the sentence where you need to take a breath.
Sometimes that’s coincidentally the case.
You use commas to separate different pieces of information within a sentence. So here’s a very simple example.
Last Thursday, at 1030 am, I took Dudley to see the vet.
So we’re saying roughly when, specifically when, and what we did. Three separate pieces of information within that sentence.
What we’re doing here is breaking down the information your reader has to absorb. We’re making it as easy as possible for them to follow what we’re saying.
This is especially important if you’re writing in an academic context.
At university, your writing is a vehicle to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding. The easier you can make it for the person who marks your work to recognise that, the better.
I created a punctuation basics document for university students. There’s lots of examples and things in there. You can download this for free.
Just one final word of advice from personal experience.
6+1. Perspective
Many years ago I was working hard trying to maintain my writing career.
I’d had some novels published, but I’d changed agents and was trying something new. I’d written another book and I was at the stage of re-keying the manuscript. I was working really hard.
It was the school holidays and my wife said she was going to take the kids to Oxford for a day out. Did I want to go?
I said “no” because I really wanted to get that manuscript re-keyed and sent off to this new agent.
So they went off to Oxford and travelled on buses and walked around and ate hot dogs and ice creams and had all kinds of fun.
I stayed at home, re-keying this manuscript.
I remember it clearly, sitting on the sofa retyping this book.
Now, at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.
Something I had to do.
But nothing happened with that book. And eventually that agent and me, we parted company.
That day in Oxford with my wife and kids will never happen again. So the point I make here is: keep some perspective.
I recognise now that day out would have been good for me, good for all of us. It would have fed my creativity. I could have taken that day and come back refreshed.
I’d have had a break, been in good company, and we’d have had a day to remember together. My only memory of that day is sitting at home while they were out in the sunshine.
Take from that what you will.
Write all you like.
Write all you can.
Express yourself.
Enjoy yourself.
Produce the best work possible.
But sometimes consider the sacrifices you might be making.
And whether they’re really worth it.
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I’m a published novelist, writer, editor and Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow with 30 years’ experience across business, fiction, other non-fiction, scriptwriting and education. If you’d like me to produce a video like this for you, get in touch.
Martin Sketchley 