Do you look at your blog sometimes and sigh? Is the writing a little on the tired side and a bit of a chore? Fancy taking a little MOT courtesy of suspense writer Stephen King? In this writing tutorial Kirstie Pelling from The Family Adventure Project explains how the bestselling novelist’s tips can be applied to the craft of travel blogging…
If you’re like most of us you’ll carry on writing the way you’ve always written. But do you ever ask yourself if you create the best environment to create the best posts? Or if you ever surprise your reader with creative content? Over the coming months I will be posting some writing tutorials to help you refresh your writing. I’d like to start with a general freshen up from the author Stephen King. ‘On writing’ is the novelist’s guide to would be book writers, but many of the same principles can be applied to bloggers. Here I’ve used Stephen King’s own words, in titles and quotes from the book, and added a few of my own tips, applying them to a bloggers life…
1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience. “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”
Note to bloggers: The key word here is ‘story.’ Storytelling is the key to good blogging. If you concentrate on telling a good focussed story in posts that you are engaged with and enjoy, then you are halfway there.
2. Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.”
Note to bloggers: For examples of the active versus passive, go check out this page. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/grammar/active-and-passive-verbs. (Notice I didn’t say ‘this page can be checked out!’)
3. Avoid adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend. Consider the sentence “He closed the door firmly.” It’s by no means a terrible sentence, but ask yourself if ‘firmly’ really has to be there.”
Note to bloggers: If you find yourself wincing at an overwritten passage in a blog it’s probably the bad adverbs that are annoying you – pointless, clichéd or just wrong. Can a sea really be listless? Or passionate? Go through your latest blog post and get rid of them.
4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.” “While to write adverbs is human, to write ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is divine.”
Note to bloggers: ‘Exclaiming’ and ‘proclaiming’ is for a Greek chorus. Not for your characters in that well crafted post on your recent trip to Greece. Sorry, they really have got to go.
5. But don’t obsess over perfect grammar. “Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story…”
Note to bloggers: Reflect the rhythms of the country and its atmosphere through the words you use. Street lingo, foreigners stabbing at communication; it’s all part of making a feature unique and appropriate. Show how relaxed or uptight you are as a traveller and storyteller in the post through the language you use.
6. The magic is in you. “I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.”
Note to bloggers: Brainstorm that post you really want to write but have always been too afraid. Then brainstorm ten others. Write uncompromisingly. Be brave. Write from the heart.
7. Read, read, read. “You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.”
Note to bloggers: This is crucial. Don’t just read blogs. Read travel writing through the ages, guide books, poetry books, novels about travellers. Then go read some blogs and see what the competition is doing.
8. Don’t worry about making other people happy. “Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second to least of your concerns.”
Note to bloggers: You will undoubtedly use Facebook during lunch and Twitter all the way through dinner. Ignore this one as you already annoy your family at mealtimes enough.
9. Turn off the TV. “You must be prepared to do some serious turning inward toward the life of the imagination.” Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.”
Note to bloggers: If you don’t want to go cold turkey maybe start with one TV free evening a week. Though obvs not on the nights where you hve to watch Homeland/Line of Duty/Strictly.
10. You have three months. “The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”
Note to bloggers: Let’s go with this rule of 3’s. For fun try writing a post in three minutes. Or spend three minutes brainstorming new ideas. Set an alarm.
11. There are two secrets to success. “When I’m asked for ‘the secret of my success’ (an absurd idea, that, but impossible to get away from), I sometimes say there are two: I stayed physically healthy, and I stayed married.”
Note to bloggers: Take a walk occasionally. (I’m not going there on the state of your relationship!)
12. Write one word at a time. “A radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply—’One word at a time’—seemingly left him without a reply. I think he was trying to decide whether or not I was joking. I wasn’t. In the end, it’s always that simple.”
Note to bloggers: This is good advice, especially when you are confronted with a blank screen. Start with a word, any word. Select a random one as a prompt from a dictionary if you like and see what unfolds.
13. Eliminate distraction. “There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or video games for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall.”
Note to bloggers: Turn off your phone when you write. Yes you. Especially if you have notifications turned on. You can always go back later and research links or facts.
14. Stick to your own style. “One cannot imitate a writer’s approach to a particular genre, no matter how simple what the writer is doing may seem” You can’t aim a book like a cruise missile, in other words.”
Note to bloggers: Don’t rip off other bloggers. You won’t be as good at being them as they are. Develop your own style through trial and error.
15. Dig. “When, during the course of an interview for The New Yorker, I told Mark Singer that I believed stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, he said that he didn’t believe me. I replied that that was fine, as long as he believed that I believe it. And I do.”
Note to bloggers: Stephen King believes the writer’s job is to use the tools in their toolbox to get as much of each story out of the ground intact as possible. But be careful when you excavate – especially with other people’s stories. To misquote a famous poet; ‘tread carefully on their dreams.’
16. Take a break. “If you’ve never done it before, you’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience.”
Note to bloggers: Do your posts ahead of deadline to allow time for a second draft. And when you are feeling disillusioned with blogging then take a break. Your traffic won’t crash and the world won’t stop reading or noticing you. And you’ll come back refreshed.
17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings. “Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do. (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.)”
Note to bloggers: Bloggers don’t always approach posts with an editor’s eye. Ask a friend or fellow blogger to read it, identifying any boring bits, unnecessary scene setters or overwritten phrases. Kill be your darlings. With the delete key. Do it.
18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story. “If you do need to do research because parts of your story deal with things about which you know little or nothing, remember that word back. That’s where research belongs: as far in the background and the back story as you can get it.”
Note to bloggers: Do not tell us everything about your subject just because you have researched it. We do not need to know the whole history of the Spanish Civil War because you visited a museum in Spain. But we do need to know how you were changed by your visit. Blogging can be like weaving. Do it tightly and yet lightly.
19. You become a writer simply by reading and writing. “You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other book on writing. “You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.”
Note to bloggers: Read other people’s blogs. Even the godawful ones. Then play about with your craft. Write narrative posts, list posts, quizzes, diary entries, love letters and anti love letters.
20. Writing is about getting happy. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay?”
Note to bloggers: Remember why you started this – all those moons ago. For fun, right? Oh and if you can make a little money along the way then congratulations. Buy Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ and read more about how to dazzle your readers with your words.
What do you think about Stephen King’s tips? Have you tried any of them with any success….? Leave a comment below.
Links:
Buy Stephen King On Writing via Amazon
Further research Oxford Dictionary active and passive verbs
All images copyright The Family Adventure Project
