Surprise The Reader
To do it, you must know what your audience expects from the type of writing you’re doing and then defy it.
Without the surprise, without the twist, if you don’t pull the wool over the audience’s eyes, then it’s unlikely you’re going to be memorable. It’s precisely the fact that things are not what they seem that makes a story interesting.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
Honesty is the most important ingredient. You don’t have to be or have gone through something to write about it but you must have a heartfelt feeling about it so you can expose that emotion through your writing.
You need to have a beginning that builds to a middle and an ending, or at least an idea of where you’re going, as it is key to explore your themes and foreshadow things properly.
Another important thing is to revise your writings. Your first draft is likely to contain multiple errors, poorly phrased sections, and inconsistencies.
Good writing comes from perfectionism; meaning it lets you identify what isn’t working and how to fix it, and the rewritings hone your technique. Perfectionism is fundamental when you may only have one chance to show your work to an agent or a publisher.
But you also need to stay optimistic, otherwise, you'll get depressed and quit.
- Listen, actually collaborate and be very specific with your input.
- Suspend your ego. Your input is not about having your voice heard.
- Give others the chance to contribute in the areas where they know more than you.
RELATED IDEAS
The first words you write are the first draft. Writing is thinking. You'll rarely know what exactly you want to say when you start writing.
The time you put into editing, reworking and refining turns your first draft into a second draft, and then into a third. If you keep refining it over days or weeks or even years, it eventually becomes something great.
Tie a “want” to a “should.”
For example: if you want to listen to an audiobook but you know you should go to the gym, allow yourself to only listen to audiobooks while working out.
It is less about what you do and more about how you see what you do.
Qualities a purpose needs:
- It's a stable and far-reaching goal. You need something that motivates you and that you can organize your actions around.
- It involves a contribution to the world. It makes a difference in the lives of people who don’t happen to be you.