2. Ten Great Writer’s Secrets

Earlier this week, I promised to reveal — absolutely free — writing secrets just like those “best selling author Nick Daws” is selling for fifty bucks at his web site. Yesterday’s post took a look at the deceptive marketing practices Nick uses to sell his work; today, we’ll reveal many of the secrets themselves.

1. Secret Number One: Freewriting. Freewriting isn’t a secret; I used to teach it to college students decades ago. Here’s the trick: turn off your inner editor, set a timer, and tell yourself, “Okay, you’re not going to stop writing words until the timer goes off.”

If you go blank while freewriting, you force yourself to write something, anything — even if it’s just the words, “Next idea next idea next idea next idea.” Your brain will get bored with this pretty quickly, and new words will pop into your head.

While freewriting — no editing! Pretend your backspace key doesn’t exist. If you can’t spell a word, fake it. If you lose a comma, skip it. You can edit later; for now, the goal is to get as many words as possible on the page.

Mark’s Bonus Tip: Can’t stop yourself from editing? Turn off your computer monitor, so you can’t see any mistakes you’ve made until you’re finished writing!

2. Secret Number Two: Five Minute Bursts. Until you get used to them, extended freewriting sessions can be demanding. When working with students at the University of Southern Mississippi, we often urged them to freewrite for just five minutes … then edit and revise that text for five minutes … then go right back into freewriting for five minutes … then edit.

Switching modes kept students alert and fresh, and also calmed fears that they were creating a lot of text they wouldn’t be able to use.

Mark’s Bonus Tip: After you get used to freewriting, I suggest you switch modes about once every thirty minutes or so.

3. Secret Number Three: Write Now, Research Later. This is particularly important when you’re writing non-fiction, including reports and essays. Most beginning writers make the mistake of thinking they must complete copious amounts of research before they begin writing. Not true! In fact, the very first thing you should do with any writing project … is start writing.

As you write, you’ll naturally begin with what you know … and quickly stumble on what you don’t. Rather than stop writing, keep going. For now, in fact, just make facts up. That’s right — fake it.

What? Fake it? Sure. But these fake facts won’t ever appear in the final draft of your work. They’re just placeholders, and they serve two important purposes. First: they alert you to what you don’t know about your subject. Second: they provide an outline of the kinds of things you need to know about your subject when you do start your research.

Example: let’s say you start writing an article on whether same-sex marriage influences the heterosexual divorce rate in counties where gay people can marry. As you freewrite, you find yourself making up all kinds of statistics: a list of nations allowing same-sex marriage, the divorce rate before same-sex partners could marry, the divorce rate afterward, and, perhaps, a few quotes from conservatives who predict dire consequences for America if same-sex marriage is approved here.

Now, when you get on the Internet or go to the library, you’ll know exactly the kinds of facts you’re looking for. The result? You make the most of your research time.

4. Secret Number Four: Plots for Two Bits! Nick claims he’s got a source that will sell you great story ideas for fifty cents a pop. I can’t know for sure, but I bet he’s going to suggest you buy a newspaper . This isn’t a bad idea. How many times have you heard a book advertised as having been “Ripped from the Headlines!”?

Mark’s Bonus Tip: Save the fifty cents. Writing a murder mystery? Do a Google News search on the words “murder” and “motive.” Writing a sci-fi story? Read the latest tech news at Yahoo.

5. Secret Number Five: Faster Editing. Nick’s all about “creating technologies” to help you market your work. One technology he’s created is “Power Editing,” which he claims will help you edit your book in an hour or less. (Creating a technology, you see, is easy: you take something people are already doing, and you give it a fancy new name.)

Editing goes faster than ever, these days, especially since even basic word processors can scan for the worst spelling and punctuation errors. Meantime, rather than buy Nick’s tips, why not take a look at these great editing tips, offered for free by the folks at LR Communications Systems?

They’re great tricks — the same ones we used to teach student writers at the university all those years ago.

6. Secret Number Six: Instantly Creating In-Depth Characters. Here are five basic characteristics that, if present, give a character a sense of depth and reality:

a) A distinctive voice. Some authors use a vocal tic — a word or expression used exclusively (and often) by a specific character. There are other tricks worth exploring, including controlling the length and structure of a character’s sentences. (A detective character, for example, might speak in short, clipped sentences and avoid adverbs.)

b) A single visual signature. The funny hat. The scuffed left shoe. A birthmark in the shape of a lightbulb on the character’s left hand. Grey flecks in his or her blue eyes. You get the idea.

c) A complicated nature. A tough guy … who raises orchids. A minister’s wife … who reads pornography. A successful chef … who dreams of being a NASCAR driver. A gentle schoolteacher … who loves practicing taxidermy on small animals. Seasoning your good guys with a habit that needs breaking, and rounding out your bad guys with a sympathetic touch, will make your characters more engaging.

d) A verbal metaphor. Consistently describe a character’s actions in terms of something else. Want a creepy character? Take the idea of a spider, and use spidery verbs whenever you describe this character’s actions. Let him creep, skitter, stalk, weave, bite, and crawl his way through the scene.

Mark’s Bonus Tip: Use the above, but never, ever come right out and say the character is “spider-like.” That spoils everything. Oh — and don’t overdo this. One or two metaphorical verb choices per scene is a gracious plenty.

e) A conflicting agenda. Characters — and stories — come to life when the people in them butt heads. Tension makes the story — so make sure you know what everybody in a scene wants … and make sure each character’s goals conflict with the goals of the others. If John wants pasta, Susan should have just started the Atkins diet, and Sharron should insist on finding a restaurant that offers nothing but macrobiotic foods.

There’s more to creating characters than this — much more — but if all characters in all stories had this much depth, we’d all have more interesting books to choose from.

More later … I’m off to work on my own “best seller” for a while.