7 Tips to Improve Your Writing

Here is a list of tips that both have and continue to help me through my writing journey. Some of these are well-known basics but repetition is part of the learning process. I hope they will be of help to someone.

1. Know your reader.
This is a tip you might hear most often. In order to write a great piece, you need to know your audience. This means more than knowing a few demographics (how old they are, their average income, etc.). To know your readers means you understand their fears, frustrations, and aspirations. Writing from the reader’s perspective will dramatically change the way you write. When you have a story in mind, consider who might relate to it the most and then use that knowledge as your foundation.
2. Know your objective.
Every piece you write (blog post, essay, press release, video script, or anything else) must have only one objective. What is the end-result that you want to reach? In order to get somewhere with your writing, you need to figure out where you are going.
3. Use short words.
To persuade, you must be easy to understand. Using short words is one of the best ways to do this. No need to show off how many big words you know. The exception to this rule is in case you are writing from the perspective of someone who WOULD use such words in everyday conversation.
4. Use short sentences.
Your thoughts come across more clearly in compact sentences. Short sentences prevent you from confusing your readers.
5. Use short paragraphs.
Imagine you come to a page filled with a large block of text. There are no paragraph breaks. Are you likely to read it? Most likely no. Make your writing easily readable. Use short paragraphs.
6. Read.
Read! A lot! The easiest and perhaps the most logical way to improve your own work is to learn from others. Analyzing other people's work will help you create your own style. It is impossible to be a good writer without being a well-read individual.
7. Write.
No one starts out perfect, which means you need as much practice as you can get. The Internet is filled with writing prompts, and since they are there, might as well put them to good use. Join a writing group with individuals who seem to be about the same level as you. Critique each other's work. Give advice and receive some in return. All that effort will pay off.

And that is all for now. Do you know any other useful tips? If so, feel free to share them with me in the comments.

As always, have a nice day.

About Me

Hello! Welcome to my blog, a place where I share my thoughts, feelings, and opinions on everything that has anything to do with the ever-growing book community. Be that from an avid reader's and/or aspiring writer standpoint.

Introductions have never been my strong point, in fact, I am usually the type of person who hovers near a wall in a crowded room waiting for someone else to start the conversation. However, when it comes to blogging such strategies tend to not work out, or so I've been told anyways. So here goes nothing. My name is Karina, a Russian girl in her early twenties born and raised in Estonia, a country so small that only our immediate neighbors can find us on a map but I guess that's part of the countries charm.

Like most of my decisions in life, I decided to start this blog on a whim. At the beginning of January 2017 I, like countless other people, was sat contemplating my resolutions for the coming year when my thoughts drifted to my longtime love for books. I love reading, I have loved it since I was 10, however it has been a while since I sat down and actually read a book. To my horror, I realized that during the year of 2016, I had not read anything, zero, not a single book. I know for a fact that in one's lifetime it is impossible to read every book out there, but here I was, wasting my time by not even trying. So I made myself a promise, my biggest resolution would be to revive my passion for reading. And I invite You, yes You, to witness my train-wreck of a journey and every component that comes with it. Who knows, maybe someone will be able to relate to my endless rambling.

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Asylum by Madeleine Roux a.k.a. That Time I Judged a Book by Its Cover

Oh, boy. Where should I even begin with this one? This book has in many ways been both the source of my sanity as well as the reason for my anxiety. It all started back in January of this year (2017) when the New Year's resolutions were still fresh in my mind. So to keep my promise to read more, I was in a bookstore, the closest place to heaven on earth, well, it and a library, when a book with a very interesting cover caught my eye. That book, as you can see from the title was Asylum by Madeleine Roux. I picked it up, looked it over and put it right back where I got it from. 

The cover and the description intrigued me, sure, but from the sound of it, it was far from the genre that I usually read. However, no matter how much I tried to find another suitable book for me to pick up, my thoughts returned to the Asylum. Now that I have written those words down, I realize how odd they sound out of context...point is, I ended up buying the book. When I took it home and did some research, I was perhaps more than a bit discouraged by this book's rating on Goodreads. No, seriously, a lot of the comments were brutal and that's putting it nicely. But since I already owned the book, it was too late to backtrack and I must admit, it turned out to be a pleasant distraction from my exam preparations.

The actual review

When I saw this book I assumed it to be a suspenseful thriller, a horror for young adults. No, but really, look at the cover! Wouldn't have you thought the same? I quickly realized that those assumptions were quite wrong, in fact, this came off as an urban exploration story with a sprinkle of mystery. This is actually the reason a lot of other readers gave such poor reviews. It felt like false advertising because the first impression did not meet expectations. On Goodreads, Asylum is under the fiction and fantasy categories, wich is an aspect most of us overlooked but that is not the author's fault.

When it came to the storyline, I personally thought that it didn't live up to its full potential. It held so much promise from the beginning but somehow lost itself along the way nonetheless the overall concept was great, I personally absolutely loved it. However, there was this point in time, while reading chapter 3 or 4 when I realized that we as readers were introduced to the stories antagonist and this was so obvious, at least to me, that I thought it was impossible, way too obvious to be true. Strangest of all, the story seemed to realize this as well, as it spent the rest of its duration trying to point at every other character to convince me that my assumptions, in the beginning, were incorrect. Just when I was nearly convinced that my hunch was barking at the wrong tree, the suspect in question turned out to be the antagonist all along.

Speaking of antagonists, it was never made clear, at least to me, whether the influence to the story was of human or supernatural origin. There were signs that pointed to both, it was in fact so self-contradictory that my confusion is still present. Now I know that Asylum is not a standalone novel, it is in fact, a series and perhaps that is why this aspect of the story was so poorly explained. I personally believe that an explanation would have added to the story rather than taken away from it, but that's just a personal preference.

One other notable thing about Asylum is the shortness of its chapters. When I say the chapters were short, I mean single digit in page count. While I found it to be oddly convenient, as at the time I did not have much time to read, it also made it feel like a collection of shorts with a common theme rather than a fluid story.

Lastly, I would like to mention the illustrations, which presence added so much to the story. They were marvelous. The team behind them did a wonderful job. If I was to wear a top-hat, I would tip it in their honor.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the story. It might be hard to tell from my review, but that is truly the case. It was a pleasant read, and even though I didn't find it to be particularly memorable or outstanding, it was still enjoyable. It managed to distract me from the stress of exams and that counts for something. I gave it 3/5 stars.

So tell me, have you ever read a book just because of its cover? If so, how did it work out for you?

As always, thank you for reading.

More Book Reviews:

https://mybookaddiction101.blogspot.com.ee/2017/08/books-read-in-2017.html

7 Tips to Slap Yourself out of Procrastination and Get Back to Writing

The writing slump, that infamous monster that keeps visiting all of us when we need it the least and sometimes we can simply not afford to wait around for it to pass by itself. So here are some of the things that have helped me sit my buttocks back on the couch and open that Word document.

1. Forgive yourself. The first step to productivity is to forgive yourself for whatever made you lose it in the first place. For me, a slump usually happens right after I go over what I previously wrote. Immerse yourself in your story’s world and forget about everything else. First drafts are shit for everyone and accepting it is the only thing that can get you back on track. Otherwise, your writing session will be plagued by the haunting thought that your writing is shit and so are you.
2. Do NOT even think of Re-reading.  Reading your work before the first draft is finished kills motivation more efficiently than anything else. Start writing and keep at it, don't look at the computer screen if you can help it. The only thing slowing you down is YOU.
3. Schedule it.  If you decided on a time goal, fit that block of time into your calendar, and write it down. Having structure makes writing regularly much easier.
4. Find a new place.  Writing somewhere you usually don’t, can be an easy fix when a blank page seems daunting.  This could mean finding a park bench or coffee shop on the opposite side of the city, or it could be as simple as moving to the couch if you usually sit at a desk.
5. Minimize distractions.  Turn off the internet.  Don’t sit in the library with your friends and don’t sit in a busy coffee shop, unless those are environments that you’ve thrived in previously. Isolate yourself in a room without windows, if you must!
6. Music. Listen to music that fits the tone of whatever scene you are writing–this can help you get into the proper mindset, and the words may flow more easily, after all, inspiration can be found anywhere.
7. Don’t censor.  You’re returning to writing so your prose will not be very polished and that is absolutely normal.  That’s what second (and third! and fourth!) drafts are for.  Focus on the quantity of words rather than the quality, or challenge yourself to write for a fixed amount of time without any breaks. Having short term goals can be far easier to follow.

These are the 7 things that have helped me to get back into writing. They are far from revolutionary, in fact, you might have heard all of these countless of times before. But perhaps hearing them (or rather reading) just one more time is exactly what someone needs. I live in the vague hope that perhaps someone, one day, might find these useful. If you have any tips that I haven't mentioned but have helped you, feel free to leave a comment. Comments are highly appreciated though not mandatory, I myself am guilty of silent reading. 

Have a nice day, and may the writing Gods smile upon you whenever you need them most.