Top Tips for Writing Fiction

Mar 6

Written By Globe Soup

Here are our top tips for anyone who wants to write great fiction . . .

Keep a notebook and pen with you at all times, even on your bedside table
Inspiration often arrives completely unannounced and great ideas have a tendency to evaporate just as quickly.
Even an idea so vivid it almost takes a solid, physical form can dissipate (never to return) when someone asks you where you put the TV remote or whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher.
Keep a notebook with you always. If you need a minute to jot something down while in company, people will understand. It’s perfectly fine to excuse yourself from a conversation if you’re suddenly struck with an idea.
However, holding your finger up to silence people mid-sentence too often can be dangerous— particularly if that person is your spouse!
If in public, make sure you write in your leather-bound notebook surreptitiously and without fanfare. Especially if you happen to be wearing a black turtleneck sweater and horn-rimmed glasses. There is such a thing as looking too writerly.
Love writing stories? Register now for our free 7 Day Story Writing Challenges. Write a short story in a week, get extensive feedback on your entry, and compete for a £500 prize in each round of the challenges.
Know the proper, technical words for things
While it’s not a good idea to overstuff your work with technical jargon, brand names, or useless details… Nothing gives away a beginner writer more than a story completely devoid of these specificities. This is true of all fiction writing, but especially with stories written in the third person.
This is because third person POV automatically assigns you to the role of the omniscient narrator. As an omniscient narrator, theoretically, you should know the proper and technical words for absolutely everything that appears in your writing.
Fortunately, you don’t actually need to use them all the time. You don’t want to overuse technical or specific details, but you’ll need to learn how and when to use them to give your writing both depth and realism.
Compare these sentences:
Alex sat down on one of his mother’s chairs.
Alex sat down on one of his mother’s Regency mahogany dining chairs.
The second example adds an authoritative detail, which brings a certain credibility to the story. We now believe in the existence of these chairs, which also makes us believe more in the existence of Alex and his mother.
The whole story suddenly feels more real. But it does more than that. By adding the detail of the chair, we also get a clever hint about the kind of person Alex’s mother might be. After all, what kind of person is likely to have a set of Regency mahogany dining chairs?
This simple sentence might even suggest something more complex about the relationship between Alex and his mother. It seems like Alex might also know the proper name for these chairs. Perhaps as a child he was constantly being chided by his mother for not being careful enough of her precious, antique furniture?
We can’t know this for sure, just from one sentence, but it does sow a tiny seed in our minds. It’s then up to the writer whether or not to build on this later in the story.
Let’s look at another example:
I opened the box and pulled out a tube of blue acrylic paint.
I opened the box of Winsor and Newton’s and pulled out the cobalt.
This is a story about an artist, written in first-person POV. The narrator has been working with acrylics for a long time, so she no longer thinks about the fact that they are ‘acrylic paints’ when she uses them.
However, she does have different sets of paints from different brands. She’s choosing from her box of Winsor and Newton paints this time, so the name of the brand has relevance in the moment.
Using brand names in your writing also adds to the realism. We believe more in the existence of these paints because of this specificity. This makes our narrator seem more real, too. The use of the word ‘cobalt’ also adds to the realism here because as an artist, our narrator is aware that there are several different shades of blue, and so she uses the actual name of each shade, without thinking.
Finally, by choosing the word ‘cobalt’ instead of ‘blue’ the writer instantly makes their writing richer. We often think that adding richness and depth to our writing requires metaphors, similes, or paragraphs of fervent description. But sometimes we can do it with just one word in place of another.
Adding in these kinds of technical details is one of the quickest and easiest ways to elevate your writing. How did we come up with ‘Regency mahogany dining chairs’ and ‘Winsor and Newton’? We simply used google to find some names of antique furniture and brands of acrylic paint.
It really is that easy! Just make sure you don’t start adding too many of these kinds of details. Overusing them can sound a little silly! You don’t want to end up with something like this:
Sally picked up a can of Coca Cola, sat down on her faux-leather Ektorp three seater sofa, and switched on her Samsung Neo QLED 4K Smart TV.
Read often and read widely
Read the work of the very best writers. If you expose yourself to it often enough, the rhythm and pace of good writing will become an ever-present drum beat in your soul and will be there in the background whenever you sit down to write.
If you come across a passage of writing you really admire, try to figure out the mechanisms at play. Have a go at rewriting it in your own words, changing the meaning, but keep the basic structure the same. Don’t worry, all writers are influenced by the work of other writers.
First, you need to be able to identify literary techniques, then to copy them, master them, and finally be confident enough to reinterpret or subvert them.
If you take the time to read and study the work of great writers, you’ll see your writing improve much quicker than if you simply practice through writing alone.
Know everything your characters know
Well, maybe not everything, but a good deal of it. For example, if one of your characters is an astrophysicist, you should definitely be reading up on astrophysics.
Even if that character’s profession doesn’t feature heavily in the book or story; their level of education, knowledge, vocabulary and areas of expertise will inform the way they act, think and speak. By doing your research, you’ll understand your characters better, you’ll start to think like them, and their behaviour and the actions they take will feel more authentic.
You never know, you might also find something in that research that you can include in the story.
If one of the major themes of your story is loneliness, an amazing scientific fact about the nature of the universe could be a perfect metaphor to include in your story about the astrophysicist.
Find ways to write every day
The number of writers who manage to make a living at writing is depressingly low. This means that the majority of us will have to find time to write around work and family.
Even with a full time job and other commitments, it’s still possible to write every day.
Developing a daily writing habit is the key to becoming a good writer. Work out how much free time you actually have every week — and be realistic! Then work out how many words you might typically write in that amount of time. That’s now your self-imposed weekly requirement.
You may not always be able to hit your target, but as long as you’re always trying to, it’ll all add up in the end.
It’s much better to write just a few hundred words per day than it is to spend the whole day writing, if you can only do that once a month. Even if some days you only write for half an hour, you’ll start to accumulate a healthy word count over time and you won’t have those long gaps between sessions.
Half an hour per day adds up to 182.5 hours in a year and we can guarantee you’ll be a better writer at the end of it.
The more that writing becomes muscle memory, the more productive each writing session will be. Too many days off writing in a row, and your writing muscles will start to atrophy.
So, even if you know you’ve only got 30 minutes today to write, make sure you do it! Don’t leave it ‘til another day when you think you’ll have more time. And if you’re looking for motivation to keep writing, why not start entering writing competitions?
Make the world your writing inhabits feel real
It doesn’t matter if your writing is hyper-realistic or fantastically fanciful; the world your characters inhabit should feel real.
If you do write fantasy, spend some considerable time on building a coherent and consistent world with its own rules. The rules don’t have to be at all similar to the rules of our world; as long as you know what they are (and you stick to them consistently throughout), your readers should still find it credible.
Just make sure if you’re writing science fiction, fantasy or dystopian (the major worldbuilding genres), you don’t info dump your worldbuilding into the beginning of the story or book.
Worldbuilding should be like an iceberg; only 10% revealed to the reader. And don’t feel pressured to set everything up right at the beginning of the story.
Imagine your world is a real place and your reader was transported there when they opened your book. If this happened, your dear reader would only find out information about where they are bit-by-bit, with each new thing that happens. Explaining everything upfront is the quickest way to make your reader feel that this isn’t actually a real place.
This applies to all fiction writing. Too much exposition at the beginning just reminds the reader that you’ve made it all up.
Join a writing group
Regular interaction with other writers will help you to stick to your goals, reignite your passion for the craft (if it starts to wane), and build your confidence.
A writing group can also provide opportunities to receive feedback on your writing; helping you to grow and improve as a writer much faster than if you decide to go it alone.
Most creative writing groups will be an interesting mix of different kinds of writers, all with different levels of skill and experience. You’ll be able to learn from each other while mitigating the loneliness of this often solitary art. Look for creative writing groups in your local area or join an online group.
Here at Globe Soup, we know how much beginners can benefit from being part of an active and supportive network of writers. That’s why we created our LOVE-TO-WRITE Group on Facebook.
In the group, you can ask questions, get advice, find beta-readers, and network. We also run free free mini writing challenges with cash prizes exclusively for members. These little contests are specifically designed to focus on key writing skills, giving members a fun way to improve their writing with the encouragement of their peers and the motivation of a cash prize!
Before starting a novel, wait for an idea that really grabs you; and that is complex and interesting enough to warrant that level of time and attention
Writing a novel is a painstaking process that usually takes years. Make sure you have an idea rich enough to sustain itself. An idea that warrants that many pages and hours of your life. Make sure it’s a book that demands to be written and be confident that you’re the only one who could write it.
Try your hand at short story writing
If you want to write fiction, the chances are you want to be novelist rather than a short story writer. If this is true, it’s not a bad thing. There’s more of a market for novels, anyway.
However, ignoring the art of the short story means ignoring the opportunity to hone your craft in a much more condensed and productive way.
Writing a short story is like giving yourself a complete crash course in the art of writing fiction. And regularly writing short stories is like taking that crash course again and again in quick succession.
Not only do short stories follow the same 3 act structure (beginning, middle and end), but they also echo the very same process of writing, editing, and polishing.
To write a great short story, you’ll need: engaging, three-dimensional characters, a strong opening that hooks the reader, a well-thought-out plot, a character facing some kind of conflict, great dialogue, a satisfying ending . . . is this starting to sound familiar?
Writing short stories allows you to come up with a great idea, plot that idea, execute it quite badly at first, and then rewrite it into submission until you end up with something polished and complete.
If you begin your writing life by attempting a novel, the chances of you even reaching the end of that process are pretty slim and the chance of you reaching the end of that process in under a year is almost non-existent.
Start a short story today and you could easily have a piece of polished and complete literature by the end of the week.
Looking for inspiration? Why not check out our list of the 20 Greatest Short Story Writers of All Time!
Read and write as many different genres as you can
At least to begin with. Unfortunately, when you’re a successful, published author there isn’t much incentive to write in multiple genres. It takes time to build up a fanbase and if you’re known for writing detective novels and you suddenly come out with a fantasy book, it’s a sad truth that many of your loyal crime readers won’t come along for the ride.
This is why, when some writers do decide to explore a new genre, they’ll often use a separate pen name to avoid confusion and disappointment from their fans.
But while you’re still learning the ropes of fiction writing in general, it’s a really good idea to practice writing in as many different genres as you can. Doing so can help you find the genre you’re most suited to as a writer and help you practise the individual skills each genre requires.
For example, writing a thriller will require you to effectively build, sustain, and resolve tension.
Writing romance will hone your skill with writing about emotion, feelings, and the interplay between characters.
Writing horror will allow you to explore human psychology, create atmosphere, and add a palpable tone to your writing, as well as practice describing settings and action.
Dystopian fiction can be great for learning how to create mood and writing high-stakes scenes.
Science fiction can let you explore the big ideas behind your writing and to think philosophically.
Although each genre seems to require a different set of skills, in actuality great fiction writing requires a mastery of all of them.
This is another reason why writing short stories is an excellent idea. You can get the experience of practising each genre without dedicating a year of your life to each one!
If you’d like to try your hand at writing short stories in different genres, you should definitely register for our free 7 Day Story Writing Challenges. For each challenge, you get randomly assigned a genre and a theme and then you have just 7 days to write your story.
At the end of the week you can get extensive feedback on your entry and each round of the challenges has a $500 prize up for grabs. Find out more about the challenges and register here.
Show, don’t tell
Somewhere in our evolutionary history, humans developed the ability to empathise.
Storytelling probably began in a rudimentary form around this time too.
Fiction writing is about manipulating that capacity for empathy to tell universal truths about the human experience. It’s not the nefarious kind of manipulation either, because the reader wants to be manipulated. They’re desperate to be manipulated and you rob them of that experience when you ‘tell’ instead of ‘show’.
Think of the last truly incredible dream you had. One that was so thrilling and vivid it felt like you’d written the greatest novel of all time in one night, with your head on the pillow.
Now go and tell someone else about your dream and watch their eyes glaze over. The reason dreams are so thrilling when they happen is because they include enough texture and detail to pass for real life.
When we recount a dream to someone else, we usually skip the texture and detail and simply tell the poor, unfortunate person who’s listening the events of the dream one by one, hoping that they’ll be enraptured.
If you want to be a good writer, there’s only one thing to do: you must bring the reader into the dream, too. As Chekhov said,

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
When you introduce a new character, instead of telling the reader he’s a teenager, try showing the reader his age instead. Describe his physical appearance, the way he dresses, the way he shuffles his feet, or speaks in monosyllabic sentences. Don’t tell the reader it’s cold outside, but show them the hoarfrost on fenceposts. Show them the tiny rivulets of juice running down a child’s chin, instead of telling them the mango was ripe.
Understand that everything you find difficult about writing is difficult for every writer
It can be tempting to believe that you have sole ownership over the trials of writing. You know, because you’re singularly stupid and useless and untalented, right? Resist the temptation to think like this. You’re not special. We all suffer. This isn’t supposed to be easy!