Occasionally, you have to shake things up in your writing.
It’s hard enough for many just to get the motivation to write. Then they have to come up with a story in mind, the proper scene to spell out, the characters and the dialogue and on and on. And sometimes, it’s easy to get stuck in the same rut as a writer. To do the same style of things. To hone your voice and your craft and to end up sounding exactly the same as you did in your last work.
I say occasionally shake things up.
Avoid doing the things that you do often. If you’re just starting to write, you won’t know what these are. For me, they are the things that I naturally gravitate toward.
I’ll share an example.
I’ve always been a big fan of sharing characters’ thoughts throughout the book. Recently, I’ve done it with the use of italics. I probably copied that style from Stephen King, who has done it in a lot of his works. My novel, Isolation, was full of italicized thoughts. So much so that it had become a habit. So in the love story I spent much of last year working on, the initial draft was full of italicized thoughts. It actually didn’t work as well, so I spent a lot of time in the rewriting taking those thoughts out (and trying to show them in other ways).
I’m well into another supernatural suspense story, and so far I haven’t had one italicized thought. This is deliberate. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse, but it’s a change of pace, a slight change of style.
How are your chapters broken down? Is it always chapter one, chapter two, chapter three and so on? Change that up. I’m always trying different things with even chapters and sections. For instance, Isolation had several sections and chapters in each from various character point-of-views. In my upcoming novel, Ghostwriter, I once again used sections, but this time instead of having numbered chapters, I had unnumbered chapters divided into “bits” that were numbered. With the current book I’m writing now, I only have large chapters that are numbered with Roman numerals (so literary, huh). And these chapters consists of short sections from different point-of-views.
That might all sound a bit confusing. My point is this. Change things up. How many books do you read that have chapter one, chapter two, same old chapter three, same old same old?
Sometimes you do something and it works. The response I got from Isolation was very strong, so I tried to emulate that in following works. But not every style works for every story. Each story has to have its own unique voice and style. And you can only find that when you shake things up and try different things. Sometimes they don’t work. Believe me–I know. It’s a hard way to learn, but it’s the only way to learn if you want to grow as a writer.
Thanks for all these great tips, Travis. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts.
Hey CJ. Glad you’re enjoying them. Hopefully a few of them will be helpful in your writing!
Definitely. In fact, I was just thinking about what you’ve said, about not every book being the same as the last, when the current book I’m writing started looking different than I originally expected.
I don’t want to get stuck in a rut with my writing, and it’s helpful to know from someone who’s been there that it’s okay if you write something different from what you’ve written before. In fact, that’s probably a good thing. 🙂
Definitely don’t get stuck in a rut. I think the thing every author has to do is figure out what he or she is good at doing. It’s hard enough to write anything good. Once you get an idea at what type of book you’re good at writing, you still need to evolve as an artist. The current story I’m writing keeps taking twists and turns–because at the core, I know the story I need to tell. The genre it will be in almost doesn’t matter–what character am I writing about and how will her story get out? Every new story is an adventure!