This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Mary Grehan is an Irish author whose debut novel, Love is the Easy Bit, has recently been released. You can read our review of it here. Mary’s top tips for writing are…
1. You don’t have to repeat yourself. Repeating yourself is nagging and the reader does not want to be nagged. The astute reader will get it first time.
2. Vary your writing pace, from slow to fast and back to slow.
3. Read your writing aloud, all of it, not just the dialogue. This will tell you if it is flowing. It will also show you the pace of the writing which you may want to vary.
4. You can use dialogue to expose the quirks and ticks of human behaviour, show how people don’t listen to each other, how they say one thing and do another, how they say one thing and think another, how they repeat themselves, how they contradict themselves…
5. You might have written the most clever, lyrical piece of prose, but if it is not serving the story or your characters, it will have to go. Sorry!