Tips for Young Writers

I love encouraging young writers, whether they’re 2nd graders dreaming up stories about their cat or teen proto-novelists writing a gut-wrenching dystopia. Writing is a skill that will serve them throughout their lives, and fiction writing in particular exercises those creativity muscles and forces young writers to write succinctly and with purpose.

Things Every Writer Should Try To Do

1) Write every day - There is a saying in the writing world that you have to write a million bad words before you can start to write the good ones. I don’t entirely believe this, but quantity does count. Craft improvement is a journey and every day you’re writing, you’re taking another step down the path. Similarly, no matter how many classes or workshops you take, no matter how many books on writing you read, the only way your craft will improve is to sit down and write. You can write on the computer, long-hand in a journal, or on scraps of notebook paper stolen from your friends (my favorite technique in high school). What counts is words on the page.

2) Read every day - Words are your tools, and reading arms you with words, concepts, bits of dialogue and a million other craft tools that you tuck away in your brain, on ready recall when you need them. Read books you like. Read books you hate. Read fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, the newspaper, blogs … even the cereal box counts. Fill up your brain with words and they will be ready to pour out onto the blank page (rather than having all that white space strike terror in your heart).

3) Look to the Professionals - Analyze books that you like, to see what makes them such amazing stories. Read books on the craft of writing. Here are three that I recommend for beginning writers of any age:

Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell

Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams

4) Read writing blogs - There are thousands of author blogs on every possible topic related to writing. Three blogs to get you started:

                Ink Spells (my blog) - see the tab on Writerly Musings for posts on writing craft

                Seeing Creative (author friend Stina Lindenblatt’s blog) - especially her Friday Links posts

                Exercising the Write to Ramble (author friend Laura Pauling’s blog) - especially her Plot Buster’s series which breaks down best-selling novels

4) Look for workshops or classes in your area - Libraries are a great place to check (not only Palatine, but Schaumburg and Des Plaines), as well as summer classes at community colleges and camps. And don’t forget your school! Many schools have before or after school writing clubs where you can meet other young writers.

Two local area workshops/classes:

Ages 8-11

Take a class at Harper’s InZone program this summer - From The Write Stuff, a class that explores all types of writing, to Left of Write, a class that encourages kids to be creative in finding their voices, InZone has summer classes for budding writers.

Ages 12+

Take my writing workshop Writing While Teen - June 26th and July 10th at the Palatine Public Library. We’ll look at basic craft in the first class, and learn how to critique in the second, including information about how to publish your works. Register here.

The most important thing to remember is listed #1 above: write, write, write. Your journey of a million words is taken one page at a time.