Great Tips For New Writers

          By Gabriel Cortez-Jerome

          I am only a creative writer, but I believe that my philosophy about writing can help any writer who is struggling to produce work that can hold up to the high standards of a writer’s ego.

            Curiosity is an important motivator for any writer. All writers need mystery, because writers often relish in making known, what was previously unknown. The art of written literature is like education solidified. Because of this, all writing is in part showing off. The art is in the words themselves, for they act as a vessel through which an idea is passed from one mind to the next.The very act of recording a thought, through written ink or otherwise, displays a satisfaction with an idea and how it is expressed.

            In order to write a thought down, a writer must be satisfied with it. The act of writing itself places no responsibility upon the writer, however, when one has the audacity to take up the pen, they must be dignified in how they represent their ideas. Whether bragging, reporting, or convincing, the writer should always bear in mind the audience.

            In order to innovate on old styles and language, writers must think of themselves as pharmaceutical engineers, improving on old formulas to come out with better and better drugs. To do so we must use our minds to segregate every kind of language to the smallest morpheme. A writer should be familiar with which words to use in each invented scenario. In doing this, we writers push our successors to squeeze their works into smaller niches of the market’s spectrum. In doing so, we hope to make them more creative in order to pay our dues to the evolution of writing.

            To be a good chemist, you must easily segregate the world into easily organized pieces. Those pieces are painted by our collected experiences. It is my personal belief that the sentimental is how we blur together the smallest pixels by focusing on the larger picture. To give something nostalgic value, we must find something that in some (hopefully more obscure) way reflects a valuable idea. To recreate pictures from memories, a writer weaves together sentimental symbols, using them as a more closely revered language of symbols that we use to identify ourselves as unique.

            Every writer must recreate our unique experiences by understanding deeper truths that are universal to many readers as well. Because writing is most importantly a vessel for communication, it is important to remember that a true writer should at least try to write for others. To do this, we must use common symbols to allow the reader to experience the same beauty felt by the writer. Remember that the writer wants a reader to share his/her vision through wordplay. Also remember that most residents of the planet Earth need money to sustain themselves and so passion must not be the only motivator to the writers time allotted to writing and to his/her subject matter. The earlier idea of coming up with new creative ideas with universal themes is essential to getting noticed. To a writer, a word is like the feather of a peacock.

            Diligence is an element not to be overlooked. I like to finish old works over long spans of time like complex puzzles to be slowly deciphered. By always keeping a notepad on hand, a writer is continuously giving him/herself opportunities to record creativity. I constantly find myself losing valuable thoughts to the wind because I carelessly thought that I could juggle more than three at once. Setting deadlines on your calendar, alarms, signing up for blogs, we writers are forced to give ourselves material to work with. The more material we collect, the easier our writing puzzles are to complete.

            Don’t fear specificity! People like to hear personal details. People like it when themes are implied by obscure aspects of a universal signifier. Many writers fail to set up their own context and instead state what they mean too explicitly, making it uncomfortable to read. This is a very heavy-handed approach and is on the wrong side of subtlety. To imply your point, try to draw a picture with subtle signifiers. This is what they mean by the popular phrase “show don’t tell”.

            Inform your lyrical lexicon of literary references by indulging in interesting conversation, outings and experiences. Surround yourself with a variety of people to keep the material fresh. If one of your memories is naturally more interesting to others, it is easier to make it into a masterful story than if the memory were less interesting. In the same way, your writing will always improve the more you experiment with different styles of writing.

            No matter the style, writing is the same as acting. Every exercise to increase your writing ability is a matter of sculpting your mind to be worth paying attention to. With every voice you use, you must master the character you are acting out. Learn all of their idiosyncrasies, this is easiest when the voice you are using is your own because you know your own opinions. The voice is interesting but the opinions they express are the real reason people are reading.