Writing is complex. Sometimes, you need to try unconventional writing tips to complete your project. Check out the uncommon writing tips below and see which ones work for you.
Keep reading.
Drawing Complex Characters
Ideally, you will want your characters to be complex and a mix of good and bad traits. By doing so, you will make your characters believable. If you are struggling in this area, you might want to try the hack of temporarily changing their names.
When it comes to replacing the names of your characters, you will not want to just choose any name but replace them with the names of real people that you like or hate. For instance, if you like a character and want to write them more fairly, you will want to give them a friend’s name whom you really like.
Make sure to switch the names back after the initial draft is completed.
Edit Out the Last Thing
Another hack to follow is to cut out the last thing that you wrote. Mostly, when writers have jotted down an important point, they still keep talking. So, there are always extra words after the point, which are nothing but extra.
The extra words only make the plot weaker. So, you will want to use your judgment and assess the last thing you wrote. When analyzing the last lines, you will ask yourself if cutting out the extra words would strengthen your plot.
You might have to cut the last paragraph or a few paragraphs to make your plot better.
Always Print before Proofread
The most challenging aspect of writing a book is to complete the manuscript. Once you have completed your manuscript, make sure to print it for effective proofreading. Of course, you can edit and proofread the document online, too, but for some reason, having a physical copy online will make it a lot easier for you to spot mistakes.
You can use a highlighter or pen to mark the mistakes. If you don’t have access to a printer, you can export the manuscript as a PDF and you can put it on your e-reader. The act of changing the format of your manuscript can make it a lot easier for you to spot typos.
You might as well want to change the font on your Word document, and this will give you new eyes to look at your manuscript.
Stop Writing when You Are Overdoing
As a writer, especially when you are writing your first draft, you will want to understand when to stop writing. Now, this might seem counterintuitive if you have a good story flow. However, you will want to know where you are starting at the beginning of your next writing session.
Suppose you have set a writing goal of a certain number of words every day, and once you have hit the goal, you will want to stop writing. Even if you still have ideas. Instead of continuing to write, you can jot down a few bullet points so that in the next writing session, you know exactly what you are working on.
If you run out of ideas or burn yourself out of ideas, your next writing session will be a lot of thinking, which will slow down your writing process. Speaking of ideas, if you do have a great book idea but don’t have the time to write, you can hire an ebook ghostwriter who will write a book for you while you still get to keep your royalties.
Include Small Summaries
Another uncommon writing tip is to create sentence-long summaries of your scenes. If you don’t like the idea of creating an outline, you can immensely benefit from this advice. Now, the summaries will still work as an outline, but you will have the benefit of having an overhead shot of your book.
If you are writing a longer book, you will find this hack really helpful. However, if you also forget everything that you write, you will find this hack very helpful. The summaries will also act as easy access to the miniature version of your book.
Generate Ideas Consistently
You will want to keep a separate list to brainstorm ideas. This hack can be specifically useful if you are writing short things, such as blogs or poems. Here is what happens: once you form an idea in your mind, your subconscious works on it. So, by the time you have completed a section of your book, you might have had five to six ideas that you have been passively outlining in your mind.
If you look at it – those ideas are free content that you don’t have to spend time and energy on. Whenever you perceive an idea, you will want to jot it down so that you have a list of consistent ideas that you generate in your mind.
You can use this for blog posts or other content mediums that you might be working on.
Make a List of Problems
This unconventional writing hack is useful when you are working on a specifically long project and you detect problems. Instead of disrupting your workflow and stopping the draft in the middle, you will want to keep a separate list of problems as they pop up in your mind.
You can address the problems later – after you have completed your draft or your section for the day. You will find this method especially helpful for novel revisions. For instance, if you find that your protagonist needs a stronger arch or you detect a plot hole.
Instead of halting the entire writing process, you will want to maintain a list of all the things that you notice. This way, you can go back to the things later and address them chronologically after your draft is completed.
Sometimes, the problems can be too big. So, if you find that you are losing momentum on a project, you might want to go back and read everything from the beginning to try to find where you went wrong.