Tag Archives: writing journey

Top Tips for Writers

Top Tips for Writers: The Boy in the Burgundy Hood Street Poster

I’ve been writing stories since the age of seven, but I’ve only been studying the craft of writing for the last ten years or so. Here’s a few top tips for writers that I’ve learnt, many of which I wish I’d learnt sooner. They would have saved me a lot of time.

Read A LOT – your imagination needs fuel and it’ll get a lot from your real life, but much much more from reading thousands of stories. Yes, thousands. (Here’s a few goodies to start with.)

Plotting’s not for everyone but for me a short overview helps me not go down too many dead ends. You can always change your plot as the story develops.

When thinking about plotting, remember that most stories, even non-fiction ones, are about suspense. The writer’s job is to create a character so real that the reader invests their emotions into him or her. And then to put that character through a whole load of difficult scenarios where the reader can’t help but keep reading to see what’s going to happen to them.

Keep your writing precise not flowery and avoid as many adverbs as you can.

Find the angle – if you’re struggling to find an angle that makes your scene and characters spring into life, starting with dialogue is always a good idea.

Keep learning (a mantra for being alive, really).

Only do it if you love it – except for a very small number of people, there’s no fame in it and you’ll make a lot more money in your standard day job. (Although we can all dream that one day, in the not-too-distant future, our name will be writ large on the street…).

For the definitive advice check out the 10 points of Elmore Leonard (and while you’re there, sign up for the fantastic newsletter of Brain Pickings).

Finally, if you haven’t read it, get this:

And this:

Origins of a Writer

First story Steve Griffin writer
Paddington Bear – furry, hapless, always lovable

A year or so ago my dad, now in Australia, sent me one of the first things I ever wrote. It was a story about Paddington Bear, Michael Bond’s much loved, slightly hapless, very furry refugee from Peru. I loved the world of kindness, mishaps and marmalade that the author had created and wanted to add to it in in my own way. So I created my first piece of fan fiction, illustrated with my own pictures. (Note – if you’ve never read Paddington, it’s not too late – see why here!) Receiving the booklet made me reflect on how I had begun my life as a writer – something that would wax and wane across the years but never die out.

An early reader, I began writing my own stories when I was seven. I remember filling narrow spiral bound notepads with action stories featuring James Bond and The New Avengers. (I was hopelessly in love with Joanna Lumley as Purdey, whose poster was pinned to my wall, crying when each series finished).

Steve Griffin writer age eleven
Eleven years old (ish), sunning myself on Eastbourne seafront

But my writing really took off when I started writing books with my school friends as the main characters. I was eleven and wrote the first one, Sheriff John Ives, a tale of carnage and revenge set in the gritty Wild West, during a long summer holiday at my Nan’s house in Eastbourne. All the stories involved high action in a wide range of genres, from Sci-Fi to the English Civil War, Viking invasions to chaotic WW2 battlefields. Almost everyone invariably came to a sticky end – but for some reason my friends still loved reading them. As each was finished it was passed excitedly around the class. Other children began writing their own stories in the same vein. For a year or two it became a new ‘craze’.

Somehow – I don’t know how, I never made a conscious effort about it – I’ve managed to keep Sheriff John Ives down the years. I wrote it for my own pleasure, but was over the moon when I found others enjoyed it too. And that for me was the key to becoming a writer – doing something that I adored, but which also had an impact on people I knew. Since then, very little has changed!

Sheriff John Ives first book Steve Griffin writer
Sheriff John Ives – carnage and revenge in the Wild West

I began to publish poems in my twenties. If you want to find out how I got inspired check out this post.

Have you ever written a story of your own? Or perhaps you’ve kept a story written by a child or other family member. Let me know below!