Young writers are often true writers who discovered their passion early in life. With encouragement, some direction and a bit of time, young writers will likely turn into wonderful authors or poets. There are some tips that will benefit writers of all ages such as reading a lot of books, getting a good dictionary, starting a blog or journal, and working from detailed outlines. However, young writers are unique with their fresh approach and active imaginations. Here are some tips for young writers to continue with their writing and possibly become best-selling authors some day:
1. Enjoy the writing process
Young writers are the fortunate few who can truly enjoy the writing process without worrying about financial pressures, paying bills, job commitments, and the many other problems that plague older writers. Have fun with your writing. Try different ideas. Don’t worry about completing the book, publishing it, or anything else. There will be time enough for those things later. Just put your best effort in writing and enjoy the process.
2. Try to write something everyday
Cultivating a regular writing habit is important for writers at any age, and the sooner you start, the easier it will get. One way to get into the writing habit is by keeping a daily journal where you write about your day and personal experiences. Other ways to encourage daily writing is by jotting down one interesting thing you saw or experienced or even read about, that day. If you want to push yourself, try to write one short story or poem every day, and before you know it, you will have a great collection for future publications.
3. Keep an idea notebook
Young writers often have wonderful imaginations and have more ideas than they can keep up with. So, keep an ‘idea notebook’ with you at all times where you can jot down any ideas that come to your mind, any thoughts about stories, or any interesting and inspiring articles you read that could become great stories. You can even write story outlines and plots twists in your idea notebook when you have time, and these could be used in later stories. Interesting photos, unusual places, witty conversations you overheard, unique people you met- all of these can go into your idea notebook and later become a part of your novel as characters, dialogues and settings.
4. Experiment with your writing
Since you already know you want to be a writer, experiment as much as you can with different writing styles and formats now, to discover which type of writing appeals most to you. Try your hand at everything from short stories, poetry, science fiction to news articles. You can try writing in first and third persons, you can write about things you know or invent something completely new, you can write people stories, animal stories, or ghost stories, and you can have fun researching new places/things to write about. There are so many avenues to explore in the area of writing, and now is the best time to do it in.
5. Save all your work
Young writers are already ahead of the other writers because they have realized their interest in writing long before many adults have. Some authors wait until retirement before writing their first novel! Your early start in writing means that you will have a large body of work, some of which may be good, and some not so good. But don’t throw anything away from your early writing years, as you could lose some gems from your fresh and un-jaded writing period. Years down the road, your half-finished novel written in tenth grade might look a lot more appealing than it did back then, and might just need a bit of editing to turn it into a decent novel. Even a poor piece of writing may conceal a great idea for a story, which you can use in later years.
Image credit: Philippe Put on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0
CS Rajan is a freelance writer who loves to write on various topics, and is currently working on her first novel.