Writers Work Alone - Making The Most Of Your Writing Time

Writers work alone.

Often with no one to give them a truly honest opinion of their stories.

So, we press on with little insight into how we’re developing.

Remember that old cliche? – If you want to become a better writer… just write.

I’ll bet many of you took that advice to heart, like I did.

I filled binders to bulging with writings that went nowhere.

The frustration was off the charts. I wanted to write, but I also wanted my writing to be good.

Let me ask you this – Would you tell a kid he’ll get to the majors if he just keeps throwing the ball and only throwing a ball? Of course not!

You’d put him in a challenging little league, get him good coaching and put him through a series of practice drills regularly.

You want him to understand the game inside out and develop his mind and body for the game of baseball.

So, why have writers been told to just write and expect to improve without the benefit of great coaching and a team of peers egging us on?

Honestly, I don’t know, but I think it’s dumb. Writers work alone is a fact, but “just writing” didn’t work for me.

So, I spent several years developing my creative writing process on my own.

I’ll tell you what I discovered as I improved my own writing…

What works for me can be adapted to your own process.

So, get ready to get unstuck and unblocked and immediately move forward with your writing.

PERSPECTIVE. It’s all about perspective.

Nobody looks out from your eyes except you. Your perspective is a completely unique thing. The singular combination of your individual energy (spirit) and life experience has given you everything you need to create a great story right now. It’s from this starting point we write.

What is Your Perspective?

So, let’s define exactly what I mean by perspective.

In a nutshell, your perspective is an accumulation of your experiences, filtered through you’re physicality (your body) and energy (your spirit). Your mind and emotions interpret these experiences to create a perspective.

That’s really all your perspective is. An interpretation of life experiences. This interpretation can be influenced by many things, both physical and non-physical.

Such as people, geography, and your gender. It’s also influenced by the non-physical things like education, religious beliefs, strong emotions and the like.

Your perspective is the big picture stuff of your writing. The stuff that’s important enough to shape your world view.

Your unique (Big Picture) perspective is the most important aspect of your creativity. The better you understand yourself, the more truly unique and interesting your writing will be.

Remember this; your individual perspective combined with a solid foundation in language, punctuation, and grammar gives you everything you need to write a great story. Frankly, that’s more than enough.

The Big Picture Stuff

Your perspective is the big picture stuff… without judgement. To use it in our storytelling we must ask the big questions about what’s important to us in this life. Our Big Picture perspective shapes our characters, the storyline and what we want to accomplish; whether its a poem, a children’s book or novel.

These are the types of questions to ask of your perspective. Add to this list at your whim:

What are the top 5 things that are important to you in Life in general?
What are the top 5 things that are important to you in your Life specifically?
Who is your audience and why are you writing to them?
What genre are you writing in and why is that important to you?
Do you have a secret, personal, underlying agenda in this story? If so, what is it?
Do you have an open and generalized agenda? If so, what is it and why do you want to blend it in to your story?
What are you trying to say to the audience through these characters?

Continue to ask yourself the big picture questions like this throughout writing your manuscript and it will sharpen your writing to precision. Apply the same type of questions to your character’s lives too.

This type of questioning will help tap into the passion for life and give energy to your storytelling.

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