Writing tips

While we want everyone to have a voice, we don’t have enough space to publish every submission. Your story is more likely to get noticed if it is original, well-written and compelling. Here are some tips to help your writing stand out.

Have a plan.

Some writers outline or map out their story before they start working on it, or as they work on it, or even after they finish. An outline can save you from forgetting to include important aspects of the story and from getting lost in your narrative. Jack Kerouac famously typed out “On the Road” in a few weeks. But he had been working on the novel for years before the typing frenzy began, and he reworked it extensively afterward. So even Kerouac had a plan.

Be Accurate.

All quotes and facts need to be accurate. Our jobs will be easier if words are spelled correctly, but bad spelling won’t count against you. And for the record, we use AP style.

Grab Your Readers.

For essays and personal narratives, the reader needs more than dates, names and places—what the character Holden Caulfied, in “The Catcher in the Rye,” refers to as “all that David Copperfield kind of crap.” One of the first questions you might ask yourself is, “Why is this story important?” Also, why should the reader care about it? Can you offer an interesting or different perspective or insight on a familiar situation?

It is a good idea to start with an attention-grabbing first sentence. It’s not always necessary to sum up the story’s content in the first sentence, but this is sometimes useful, mostly in news articles. A good first sentence is no guarantee, though; readers may be interested at first, but unless the rest of the story is compelling, they’ll stop reading.

One way to hold the reader’s attention is to use transitions between sentences and paragraphs. Otherwise it may seem like the narrative is jumping randomly from place to place, which will distract the reader, who will then probably stop reading. Just make sure that one sentence follows logically from the one before it.

Keep it Real.

Here’s a cliché about writing: “Write what you know.” That is good advice. A banker would not be advised to write a novel about astronauts, unless he did a lot of research about astronauts first.

Another cliché: “Show, don’t tell.” Basically, don’t just tell the reader what happened. Make her feel like she is there, that she’s experienced the events herself, or that she easily could experience them. Writing is an art, which means that you are under no obligation to teach lessons or serve the public good with your writing. However, there’s a fringe benefit of literature, from great novels to newspaper articles to pamphlets, in the way it can connect seemingly disparate people and cause readers to open their minds by showing them other people’s thoughts and experiences.

Also, try not to use clichés.

It’s also important to write in tune with your personality. If you’re not funny, for instance, don’t try to write humor.

Wrap it up.

There are numerous ways to end a story. Ending with a quote is often useful. Just make sure that it somehow fits the theme. Maybe you, or someone else, said something that is incredibly appropriate to the story. Save that quote for the end and use it to close the story. This technique is very popular in newspaper articles.

You don’t need to sum up the story in your conclusion. You don’t even need to close with some grand life lesson. Your conclusion should be relatively clear, but not so obvious or preachy that it insults the reader’s intelligence.

Poetry Tips

As with any other type of writing, the best way to learn to write good poetry is to read good poetry, so go to the library and study the masters: Shakespeare, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Dickinson, Whitman, H.D., Hughes (Langston, not Ted), Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Ginsberg, Bukowski, and Jack Micheline, to name just a few. There are no strict, universal rules to follow, but there is a multitude of poetic forms, including sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and limericks, each of which has its own set of rules. Then there is the free verse poem, which seems to have few, if any, rules and appears to be less restrictive than traditional forms. This doesn’t make a free verse poem any easier to write.

Any subject can be suitable fodder for a poem, from a broken heart to a broken wristwatch, from a field mouse to a flea. This doesn’t mean, however, that one can scribble a few words on a piece of paper and call it a poem. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Usually, a poem is more than a random assemblage of words or “deep thoughts.” It can have a subject, theme or message, which can be serious, funny, ironic, cynical, subversive, crude, elegant, and so on, and while it’s probably not a good idea for a poem to be painfully obscure, as with T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, it’s also no good to be heavy-handedly transparent, unless you’re writing a greeting card.

Rhythm and flow are essential to good poetry. Read your poem aloud and pay close attention to the sounds you hear. Listen closely for “ear candy,” or phrases that are especially pleasing to the ear. Again, it’s impossible to offer an exact guide to writing good poetry, but it’s worth noting that a poem should appeal equally to the ear and the intellect.

Unless you are a master of meter and rhyme, it is generally advisable to stay away from rhyme schemes. If you do rhyme, try to be inventive, experimental, or original, e.g., don’t say that you’re thankful for the love / that rains down on you from above.

Don’t be afraid to submit. If we don’t publish one piece, don’t be afraid to submit another one. We are willing to work with writers to help improve their writing, and we want everyone to be represented, so please submit.