11 Expert Writing Tips To Empower Your Prose Today

Writing tips have aided every writer out there, from Ernest Hemingway to Stephen King. There are tips I use every day as a writer that improve my work and help it resonate with my intended audience.

We’ve taught over 8,000 authors how to write, publish, and market their books over the last 10 years, and you better believe our students learn a lot of writing tips.

Writing is a skill you can never be the “best” at. You will always be able to grow and expand. Once you’ve reached what you believe is your very best, there are still mountains more you can learn. That’s part of the magic of becoming a writer.

But it can be hard to know where you actually need the improvement. Which areas are your weakest and which do you excel in? I’ve trained many authors over the years through coaching, writing workshops, and editing their manuscripts. Today, it’s time to share these writing tips with you so you can become your very best.

Writing tips: what’s covered

• How to improve writing?
• How do you become a good beginner writer?
• What are some writing tips for beginners?
• Writing tips from famous authors

How to improve writing?

You improve your writing by actually writing. But here’s the thing. Writers have a tendency to focus on the bad without knowing how to make it better. This does not help their writing motivation.

In order to improve your writing skills, you have to practice. Using different writing exercises can help you form a writing habit that keeps you practicing and therefore, improving.

Your writing skills change and grow as you do. Think of it as running. The more you run and train, the better you become. It can be really hard to write a book at first, but as you learn new techniques and literary devices, the better you become.

The way you improve your writing skills is by making a commitment to yourself, your work in progress, and all the people who can benefit from your book.

How do you become a good beginner writer?

The more you read, the more you recognize the literary elements that make good writing and can then use as inspiration in your own writing and editing.

The more you write, the better you become, and this makes publishing your book and showing it to the world much easier.

But it’s also about consuming content about becoming a better writer, like podcasts, blog posts, writing tips, and videos around the skill of writing.

These are some of our favorite writing tips resources:

• Our Youtube Channel
• Our Podcast, where we highlight success stories and learn how authors made it happen
• Jenna Moreci’s Youtube channel featuring the best fiction and self-publishing writing tips
• DailyWritingTips.com, a blog featuring unique and specific tips for writing
• Hannah Lee Kidder’s Youtube channel including tips from a multi-published fiction author
• This Stephen King video featuring his own tips
• Brandon Sanderson’s lectures from a college classroom
• Chandler Bolt’s personal Youtube channel for productivity advice and more
• JustPublishingAdvice.com, a blog dedicated to sharing helpful publishing and writing tips.

What are some writing tips for beginners?

Some of the tips I follow most are, “write what you want to read” and “resist the urge to explain.” This last one is from my writing mentor, an author with over 73 million copies sold.

(Feel free to check out these articles for tips I’ve learned from working with New York Times bestselling authors.)

1. Write what you want to read

When you create a story you love, it comes through in the writing. It will also be much easier to write and you’ll want to write it more than if you didn’t enjoy the story or topic as much. Beginners often skip this step and try to write something way outside what they know and like, which is a quick way to get burned out on the whole publishing process.

So for this writing tip, ask yourself these questions:

• Would you pick it up to read the back cover?
• Would you personally look for a book like this?
• Is this a book genre you personally enjoy?
• Will you develop the characters in a way that makes you root for them?
• Is the story structure captivating to you?Have you read and loved other books with similar worlds/characters/stories?

If you can’t answer these questions with a confident “yes,” skip the book idea and write one you actually want to.

2. Write with intention

All writing has a purpose. It needs a purpose if you want your writing to get better and read as something enjoyable.

When you have a reason for writing what you’re writing, it becomes so much easier and it feels like you’re fulfilling a purpose rather than just writing a book.

Simon Sinek calls this your “why.” If all you’re doing is writing a book to make money, it will show.

3. Use psychology to write better

On a recent podcast, I was asked to recommend books on writing. While I did recommend some by authors, I noted the importance of psychology books. If you really want your characters to feel real, study psychology.

Characters who feel like they could be human will resonate with your readers and keep them reading to find out what happens to them!

4. Write as often as you can

Even if all you’re writing is a paragraph, it’s better than not writing at all:

• Write a short story
• Start a new novel
• Write a poem
• Skip to a new section in your book to write
• Write about your life in prose to practice descriptions

The point is to write as often as you can because the more you write, the better you will get. It will help you pinpoint weaknesses in your writing and you’ll notice improvements as you write.

Writing more often also allows you to flex your imagination, which is indeed much like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets and therefore, you’ll be able to write with more creativity.

5. Eliminate distractions

In this age of technology and helpful writing software, there are endless amounts of distractions.

If you want to write better, you have to eliminate distractions that keep you from writing:

• Use a distraction-blocking App like Freedom
• Shut your phone off and put it in another room
• Close out of all apps or windows on your computer
• Spend 15 minutes listening to music that reminds you of your book to get you in the zone
• Tell all your friends/family to leave you alone for writing time

6. Research storytelling and story structure

This is largely for the fiction writers out there, but all writers can benefit from this writing tip of improving your storytelling. Storytelling and writing are not the same things.

Writing is the way in which you describe what’s happening within the story. The story itself is a whole other piece of the puzzle. When you have a story idea worth writing, there are a few things to remember.

Here are some tips:

• Learn from great storytellers. Stephen King is one of the best storytellers of all time. He has a book, On Writing, that touches on this craft. Give it a read for some of the best writing tips you’ll find.
• Read as much as you can. Writers learn how to write through reading. The more you read, and the wider variety of genres, the more you’ll naturally pick up on the art of storytelling.
• Get feedback on your stories. This is the hardest, but most crucial writing tip to help you improve. You have to understand your weaknesses in order to make them stronger.

Writing tips action step:

Read books, listen to podcasts, or watch videos about the art of crafting a story. Another great way to learn the ins and outs of storytelling is to watch great comedians. The reason they can make you laugh is how they craft what they’re saying.

Notice the pauses, when they speed through what they’re saying, and how they deliver that final line. These are all techniques you can use on a larger scale when writing your book.

7. Always get feedback

It’s very difficult to gauge your own writing because you wrote it.

You need an outside set of eyes on your work. Constructive criticism can take your writing to a new level. It has mine. I have worked with various bestselling authors over the years and their feedback has put me in rooms I never would’ve entered otherwise.

Here are some specific questions to ask others for this tip to improve writing:

• Did you find anything confusing or unclear?
• Did you understand why InsertNameHere did what they did?
• Were you able to easily follow the dialogue?
• Was the dialogue clear and concise?
• Which character did you empathize with most?
• Do you have any predictions about what will happen?
• Do you have any feedback I didn’t ask you about?

8. Focus on new ways to phrase common visuals

One of the best ways you can strengthen your creativity is by consciously thinking about how you can describe common things in new, interesting ways. You want to make people see that common item or situation or visual in a brand new light.

The way you can do this is to pause when you’re describing something in your writing and think to yourself, “how else can I explain this to create a stronger emotional impact?”

Here’s an example of this writing tip if you’re still a little confused:

“The sun set behind the trees and the world fell quiet.”

Is this a bad way to describe a sunset and night beginning? No. However, you can easily get more creative about how to illustrate this to readers through words.

Like this: “Night yanked the horizon over the sun, silencing the world with its absence.”

This is saying relatively the same thing, but in a way that stops and makes someone appreciate the way in which it was crafted.

9. Practice writing in your head

This might sound a bit confusing, so let me elaborate.

When you look at the world, how do you see it? Probably the same way everyone else does.

To practice writing without writing, all you have to do is start describing what you see in prose that you would write in your own head.

Like this: “Stillness hung in the air thicker than Christmas morning eggnog, the ground covered in a thin sheet of white speckled with brown where the snow failed to make its mark. Bare branches reached toward the absent sun, reluctantly accepting the gray of winter in its place.”

This example is more prose than reality, but this is how you can sharpen those skill by just thinking in this way.

Notice the world around you in the way you would write it in a book.

The more you practice this when you’re on the subway, making dinner, or even watching your family and friends interact, the easier it will be to write those situations in your book. Think like a writer in order to become a better one.

10. Use strong language

This writing tip can completely transform your writing for the better.

It’s the single best way to make your writing more captivating without really adding anything new. You just simply have to replace weak language with stronger, more descriptive writing.

This can take some time to get used to but the more you do it, the easier it will get. So how do you recognize weak language?

Here are some mistakes to look for in your writing to utilizing this writing tip:

• Passive voice. Passive voice is any use of a “to be” past participle. Now, that’s just a fancy way of saying that if you have something was done by something, it’s passive voice. An example of this is: “The chicken was beheaded by the farmer.” That is passive voice, whereas, “The farmer beheaded the chicken.” is active voice.
• Weak verbs. These are the basic, non-detailed version of better verbs. An example would be, “She walked to the store.” In this case, “walked” is the weak verb. You can use another form of this verb to create a stronger visual for your reader. Here’s what that would look like: “She strutted to the store.”
• Emotion explaining. Using words that are emotions in your writing is a pretty clear indicator you have to show and not tell. Saying, “She was scared,” is telling. You can create a better experience for the reader by showing that she’s scared through body language, dialogue, and description.

My writing mentor says, over and over, “Show, don’t tell.” Repeat this to yourself until it sticks!

11. Just write to write

Forget about your goals. Forget about how anyone else will interpret what you’ve wrote and just write. Don’t think about the future or publishing or where you’re going from here. Just grab that outline, sit down, and write because it’s fun.

Believe it or not, this frees up a lot of mental space and allows you to write without thinking too much, which often helps you write better.

This is the time for you to experiment and discover your writing voice. You can always work on plotting and editing directly after the fact. For now, just write.

Writing tips from famous authors

What better way to improve your writing than to practice writing tips from those who have mastered the craft? Here are our top writing tips from professional writers like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Margaret Atwood.

“Just do it.”

Much like we mentioned above, Margaret Atwood is a huge advocate of diving right in and just writing, despite your fears, insecurities, or lack of direction.

“I think the main thing is: Just do it. Plunge in! Being Canadian, I go swimming in icy cold lakes, and there is always that dithering moment. ‘Am I really going to do this? Won’t it hurt?’ And at some point you just have to flop in there and scream. Once you’re in, keep going. You may have to crumple and toss, but we all do that. Courage! I think that is what’s most required.”

As someone who has made waves with a number of her novels, including the masterpiece that landed her an entire TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale, she is someone you want to take advice from.

“You’ve got to work for it.”

Someone who knows the value of hard work when it comes to writing is J.K. Rowling. Perhaps you’ve heard of her? “You’ve got to work. It’s about structure. It’s about discipline. It’s all these deadly things that your school teacher told you you needed…You need it.”

As hard as it can be, Rowling’s advice is as sound as any. Work for your book. Work hard so others can benefit from the worth you’re holding onto.

“Write for yourself first.”

Stephen King has an entire memoir-ish that doubles as writing tips simply because writing has been nearly his entire life.

One of the best lessons King says he ever learned was from a newspaper editor he worked for while he was in high school (which he discusses in his memoir/writing book On Writing) and he has maintained that voice in his head throughout each work he writes.

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. Your stuff starts out being just for you, but then it goes out.”

On Writing by Stephen King continues to be a source of inspiration and help for writers everywhere. King has a way of pulling you in and giving you the advice all writers want and, in most cases, desperately need.

“Quantity will make up for quality.”

Ray Bradbury is one of the most quoted authors out there. He shares his methods for writing and how to actually succeed in this industry.

Some fantastic advice comes from his book Zen in the Art of Writing, where he says you have to schedule the time to write and write daily because quantity will make up for quality. In fact, quantity is what leads you to quality.

“Michelangelo’s, da Vinci’s, Tintoretto’s billion sketches, the quantitative, prepared them for the qualitative, single sketches further down the line, single portraits, single landscapes of incredible control and beauty.”

In essence, the more you practice writing, the better you’ll become and that makes all the difference when it comes to separating yourself from other writers.

“Tell the truth.”

Miss Angelou is an inspiration to writers everywhere. One of the best writing tips I’ve read of her is the fact that you have to write the truth.

“I look at some of the great novelists, and I think the reason they are great is that they’re telling the truth. The fact is they’re using made-up names, made-up people, made-up places, and made-up times, but they’re telling the truth about the human being—what we are capable of, what makes us lose, laugh, weep, fall down, and gnash our teeth and wring our hands and kill each other and love each other.”

When you have a truth worth sharing, writing becomes easier, more meaningful, and therefore more impactful for those reading it. This ties into our writing tip above about writing what you want to read.

“You can’t edit a blank page.”

Are you sensing a theme within these writing tips yet? Even Jodi Picoult agrees that you can’t become a better writer if you never write.

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

The best of all writing tips is this one. You have to actually write if you want to get better because great writing doesn’t happen on the first try. It happens on the second, fifth, and even tenth. You first have to write the words in order to make them better.

Writing tips: take your next step today

Learning various writing tips have transformed the way I write. When I first started, I was a novice. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. But thanks to hard work and practice, my writing has taken me far.

This can be the same for you. Ready to get started and make your dream a reality? Take your next step today by using our free Book Outline Generator so you can practice these writing tips today!

This blog was rewritten from the original version published by Bella Rose Emmorey.