if you could give an aspiring write one piece of advice...?

Question

i'm really wanting to know encouraging things, or tips, suggestions, etc. i know that you should always get an education and job, etc, because its so hard to get in the game....but mainly i just want learn a bit from other authors. any advice is very much appreciated! thanks

Answer 1

Okay, first things first. If you're REALLY serious about being a writer, you should NEVER post something for the public that is not properly spelled checked and punctuated. That includes using capital letters where appropriate. I know most young people do not consider a forum like this as somewhere you need to be perfect, but a good writer should ALWAYS be concerned about the way their material looks or is perceived by others. End of lecture...

Now, the biggest hurdle for any author is finding a bona fide agent to represent your work. Most agencies have thousands of manuscripts sent to them every year and typically, they only select a few works that are worthy to represent. Submitting your work directly to publishers is almost a waste of time, as the slush pile for publishers is ten times what it is for most agencies.

DO NOT submit to anyone that requires up front money or "reading" fees. Most agencies will read your book for nothing if it's well presented and if they think it has merit. Reading fees are a rip off. You can check on legitimate agencies at the "Preditors & Editors" website. They keep an up to date list of current agents and any problems writers have had with them.

Once you find an agency, you need a great query letter to get their attention. Search the web for examples. If your query letter is sloppy or has misspelled words, you're TOAST. Get a qualified copy editor to help you, if you can afford one. Then, once the agency reads your query and agrees to look at your manuscript, MAKE SURE IT IS PERFECT before you send it off. Again, bad formatting, grammar problems or poor spelling will doom you from the start. Pay an editor to proof your work--it's worth a few hundred bucks to get your foot in the door with an agent.

After that, be prepared to wait up to 3 months for an answer from the agency. DO NOT submit to more than one agency at a time. If your work is good and the agency sees potential in it, they will offer you a contract. From there, it can be another 3 month wait for them to find you a publisher. Once you get a publisher, it takes about a year to actually see your book in print.

You can also go the eBook route, which is becoming more popular every day now that eBook readers and publishers are more readily available. I did that and it worked out very well for me. I went from a very small online eBook publisher to a major hard cover print publisher, but it took several years. These days, it's much more acceptable to start out with an electronic version and move into print. However, you should think about doing your own eBook instead of paying some company to throw it together for a fee. Most of those services could care less if your book looks good, has typos or whatever. They also OWN the ISBN's for their titles--you do not--so keep that in mind.

I hope this helps. If you're serious about getting published, you can make it happen. It takes time, patience and a lot of luck. And as a note of reality, of all the fiction books published in a given year, only about 13% ever sell more than 1,000 copies. Most (75%) sell fewer than 500. Contrary to popular belief, most authors don't get rich.

Jon Baxley, author, editor, proofreader and ghostwriter

THE SCYTHIAN STONE (a medieval fantasy eBook)
THE BLACKGLOOM BOUNTY (a medieval fantasy epic in hard cover from Thomson Gale)

Answer 2

Use people you know as basis for characters.

Write about things you know. inject some events of your own life into it. Reality is stranger than fiction.

Start the plot with a "what if" premise, and really think about what would happen as cause/effect.

Don't try to sound smart in your narrative style, just talk the way you normally do, but maybe clearer and more succinct (because you have more time to formulate sentences, paragraphs etc.)

I'm not a published fiction writer, but I've always been told I have a writing style that is both clear and interesting to read. Hope my tips help a little.

Answer 3

I guess we could all write something from our own experiences, but I think it was said best below:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Answer 4

Write, write, then write some more, because all the advice in the world isn't going to help if you're not writing. Even if what you're writing isn't great at this point, at least you're writing, and you'll get better with experience.

Answer 5

Write about what you are passionate about. Pay attention to the people you encounter and learn about them. Learn learn learn about all sorts of things. Find a niche that is of interest to you...something others aren't writing about but you find fascinating. Make it fascinating for others too.

Answer 6

write what matters to you most because if you don't believe in it, why should anyone else. and when you believe in it, trust your instincts so you know when to filter advice.

Answer 7

whenever I get writers block, I read Cummings. It inspires me.