A Beginner’s Guide to Writing: 8 Tips for Starting a Writing Career

There are many different types of writing available to you as a new writer. Below is a small sampling of some genres of writing you might want to explore:

1. 1. Essays: Essays are short non-fiction pieces recounting personal experiences or offering analysis and opinion on an issue or story. Essays can be published in many different places and types of publications and are a great starting point for new writers.
2. 2. Blogs: Blogs feature posts that can be very similar to essays, although the blog format generally allows bloggers to be less formal and more brief than traditional essayists. There are many different formats and publishing sources for blogs including Tumblr and WordPress.
3. 3. Poetry: Poetry is a great medium for emotionally driven writers who like exploring a form with many avenues to play with form and structure. Many non-fiction writers and traditional fiction writers like writing poetry to supplement their other work as it allows them a different creative outlet than their other writing.
4. 4. Short stories: A short story or novella gives new fiction writers a good format to use as a starting point. Short stories have a lower word count than traditional novels and are a great place to start learning the principles of fiction writing.
5. 5. Novels: Novels are a great place to cut your teeth as a fiction writer once you feel you’ve got the basics down. Novels give you the space and length to dig into complex characters or plot out complex storylines. Novels can be shopped around to lit agents for representation and can also be sold through self-publishing.
6. 6. Audio: Audiobooks and podcasts are a non-traditional avenue for writers to explore. Writing for an audio medium presents a different sort of challenge for writers.

There are many different ways of deciding what you want to write about. Your topic will depend on the form of writing you have selected or been assigned, but here are a few different ways to generate topics and premises for your writing:

1. 1. Story: Starting with a good story or compelling main character is a good way to get into a piece regardless of whether it is fiction or nonfiction. Brainstorm a number of creative storylines and find the one that is most compelling to you—think about what would keep a reader engaged.
2. 2. Personal experience: Thinking about a personal experience is an excellent way of starting out a new piece of writing. As a human being, your memories provide you with great fodder for writing as you have an immediate point of view and can recall textural details that make your writing more specific. Think about memories that are particularly evocative—like the first time you rode a bike, maybe, or a fun date that went awry—then hash out a piece of writing based around your experience.
3. 3. Issue: Thinking about a compelling and divisive issue in contemporary society can be a great way to come up with non-fiction pieces. Whether you are just starting out in your writing career or are working full time as a professional writer, thinking about issues that you have a particularly strong point of view on or opinion of can help generate very compelling persuasive pieces.

Becoming a better writer is a lifelong pursuit. Don’t expect to master the craft within a few weeks. That being said, here are some tips that can improve your writing:

1. 1. Read. One of the most important things to do to become a better writer is simply to read. You’d be hard-pressed to find a great writer who isn’t also a voracious reader. Reading other writers’ work can help you discover new writing methods and expose you to different source material that will improve your writing and inspire you.
2. 2. Commit to a routine. As a novice writer, staring down the blank page and dealing with writer’s block can be incredibly discouraging and panic-inducing. One of the most important parts of developing writing skills is simply to commit to a daily writing routine. Develop a writing routine and set aside parts of your day as designated writing time. You don’t need a lot of time as long as you are devoting a set block of time and limiting distractions.
3. 3. Use writing exercises. New writers sometimes find prompts and exercises are incredibly useful to give them a place to practice writing and develop their personal writing style. Prompts can give you the structure to explore the first sentence of an essay or a premise for a thriller that exercise different creative muscles. Freewriting is useful, but some people find structured prompts and exercises to be especially helpful at the outset of their writing careers.
4. 4. Keep a journal. Regardless of what type of writing you are focusing on you should keep a journal to record observations from your real life that can help generate essay or story ideas. Your everyday life and experiences can give you valuable information as you think about new pieces to write.
5. 5. Join a writing group. Starting a writing group is a great way to network with fellow writers and crowdsource tips on the writing process.
6. 6. Practice different forms of writing. Even if you’ve found a type of writing that works for you, it can be very useful to sit down and work on a piece of writing outside your primary medium. If you think your best writing is generally fiction writing, try exploring essays or nonfiction articles. If you are primarily an essayist, try writing the first chapter of a novel and playing around with character development. Broadening your skill set will help improve your writing across the board.
7. 7. Do your research. No matter if you are a bestselling author working on your third book in a series or a new writer working on your first book, one of the keys to good writing is research. Before starting work on a piece of creative writing, do your homework and make sure you’ve thoroughly researched any outside information that will help you.
8. 8. Take classes. A writing course is a great resource for beginner writers to get writing advice and feedback from established writers.

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