51. Always take some time to read what you are writing aloud after you have finished a draft. Note the places that are hard to say or seem to go flat or inspire you. Try taking out the flat spots, extending the inspired spots and rewriting the hard-to-say-out-loud spots– the difficult places often require more or fewer words than you have on the page. Experiment to find out which direction helps.
52. Use specifics–names of objects and places; information, poetic movement and grounding come from using specifics.  A rose is not a rose is not a rose:  it is growing somewhere, is a specific kind, and has a particular fragrance and shape to its petals and leaves.
53. To increase momentum and immediacy, use interesting verbs: i.e. went might become traveled, ran, swished, galloped, or turned on his heel.
54. Don’t let talking or reading about writing substitute for writing. Parcel your time. Writers write.
55. Look for instructional resources that will inspire you to write:  books with exercises that you promise yourself to do at least once a week.  If you are in the thick of things with a play or piece of fiction, do exercises from your characters’ points of view.
56. Writers seek to remember particular events and reactions that shaped their personalities. Draw from your memories of eventful times. Start by listing all the difficult experiences of your childhood.
57.  Remember you are not alone in your worries. No matter how experienced, all writers have at some point in the writing of a piece, wondered why anyone would want to read what they are writing.  They have also been scared about the fact that someone is going to read what they are writing.
58. Who, what, why, how and when–be sure your narrative answers these question. In any piece of writing, determine if the narrative, characters, and setting provide answers for these questions
59. Write from the “I was there” rather than “I heard about it” whenever possible, even if you have to imagine you were there.
60. Flashback, the technique of dropping from the present into the past to highlight an event that bears on the present, can be useful, but use it sparingly.
61. When you start to write, don’t worry about your audience; write to get whatever you can on the page.
62. When you shape your first drafts, think about another reading your words–be sure to include what they need to make connections and to feel as if they are there.
63. End sentences, paragraphs, and chapters with strong sounds and concrete words, not generalities and abstractions.
64. Train your inner critic as your ally: Tell her you need her but she must wait a little bit while you are writing.  Establish that if she waits until you have more on the page, there will be more for her to talk about when you are shaping and editing.
65. Make sure that openings plunge readers into your piece and are not merely introductory or clearing space for the writing.
66. Endings circle back to the beginning in some way, allowing the reader to remember where they started and to see how far they have come.
67. If you are stuck on a line, scene, plot point or character reaction, pause and write a letter to someone you know and trust describing the problem you are encountering.  Imagine their response and what you would say back. Return to your writing.
68. Writer’s block is sometimes an emotional fear of conjuring up truth and memory.  Write anyway. You can decide later what to do with the writing.
69. Most times, when a piece of work is entirely done, what you worried about people close to you thinking has faded.
70. Writing is healing because when we articulate experience and read our articulation, we absorb our wisdom.  Then, having our thinking and experience witnessed by the others who read it, we grow further.
71. Don’t look for your voice. Use it.
72. Allow strangeness into your writing:  all good writing has something idiosyncratic in it.
73. Think of your punctuation as your writing’s manners.  How do you want the reader to think of you:  upper crust, streetwise, thoroughly modern, middle of the road, serviceable?
74. Use exclamation marks sparingly–they pump up the pitch and drama and with too many of them, the writing is at one high note and importance diminishes.
75. When you are stuck, list at least three to six ways that you might continue the work; be wild with those ways and don’t worry about how you’ll pull them off.  Re-read the list later and you will most likely be inspired by one of the ways.

****

If you’d like more, here are links to Sheila’s previous tips:

Tips 1 – 25 – published June 2, 2005

Tips 26 – 50 – published August 11, 2005