Writing Tips for My Nephew

My 13-year-old nephew emailed me a story he has been writing and asked for my feedback last week. I was very touched that he asked me and I wanted to give him pointers that were going to be practical and useful.

The thing is, though, I have no idea what standard one should expect from a teenager as I have only ever considered writing by adults. I didn’t want to patronise him in the way that adults can patronise teens so I decided that I would give him advice as one writer to another, regardless of his age.

I was looking over my email to him just now and it struck me that some of the tips I gave could actually be helpful to any aspiring writer so I thought I’d share some of them here:

1. Show not tell. This is what all writers must learn to do. Show us the scene and the surroundings so we can infer what is happening and you don’t have to tell us. For example*, “Dan waited outside the maternity ward. His palms were sweaty and he couldn’t stop fiddling with the lighter. He kept looking up expecting to see the doctor come through the surgery doors. What was taking so long?” We know he is anxious and impatient by seeing his actions. We can infer that his wife is through those doors undergoing surgery - probably because there is a problem with the pregnancy. That is “showing”.

Compare “Dan waited anxiously and impatiently outside the surgery doors of the maternity ward where he had brought his wife an hour ago because there was a problem with the pregnancy”. That is “telling” - it gives you all the information but it’s not as exciting. You’re not in there with Dan.

Look through your manuscript and see where you can change “telling” to “showing”.

2. Minimise the use of adverbs. This is what my editor at Hodder & Stoughton told me. If you are showing not telling, then you don’t need adverbs because your reader will know if your character is angry or timid and you don’t have to say “angrily” or “timidly”. Go through your story and strike out 95% of the adverbs. Keep only a handful and they will be even more powerful.

3. Minimise subordinate clauses. Subordinate clauses can work to give explanations or provide additional information. But they can also distract from the main action. For an action story especially, what you want to convey is a sense of immediacy.

For example*, “Some might have considered Anna a timid girl but on this dark night, for the sun had set some hours before, as she strolled slowly home from work, feeling tired, for it had been a long and difficult day in the office, when Anna was suddenly and brutally attacked, she felt it within her heart that now was the time to be strong and fight back with all her might.” This gives you a lot of information about Anna and her day at work and what her friends think of her. But it loses immediacy because we are not there with her in the attack.

Compare: “Anna was tired. It had been a long and difficult day at the office. On her usual route back from work, she walked more slowly that usual even though it was already dark. Suddenly, someone grabbed her from behind. …..” And then you can describe the scene where she fights back. We do not need to know yet that her friends think her timid. You can always include that later, perhaps in a scene with her friends talking about how brave she was and how that was unexpected for them. The main point in this particular scene is the attack and her fighting back.

Go through your story and see where you can cut out subordinate clauses that are not relevant for that scene right now.

So, whatever age you may be, if you’re working to improve your writing, I hope these few pointers help you, too.

If you have any tips that you’d like to share with other writers, please do add them as a comment or email me, using the Contact link above.

*These examples are NOT taken from my nephew’s story - they are invented by me as illustrations.

Photo: thanks to this is your brain on… on flickr.com