What's your #1 writing hack/tip?

For me, it's reading what I write out loud. It tends to annoy whoever is around me, but it vastly improves my writing.

So, what's your number one writing hack/tip?

Remember side characters have their own stories.

Also, character sheets. And information sheets. Basically keeping shorthand versions of who the character interacts with on a regular basis and what they own. It is so easy to forget those details.

i write my poetry by hand usually and without music/other distractions (as opposed to on a computer where there are tons). gives you more of a scope to play around with words and not lose them, and it also makes you give each word more importance.

When I write, I get into what I call, "The Zone". It's when my muse becomes a part of my, and I can write a book in a minute. To get into the zone, listening to new music usually helps. Music I have earlier listened to while writing also works pretty well.
But the point is, when you write, just write. Write the first thing you think of. Once you find a decent "Once upon a time" sentence, just write until your hands get all pale and painful. And the crazy thing is, that even though it most certainly contains bad spelling, horrible descriptions, and badly phrased words, what surprises me, is that every time, a new, incredible story unfolds. Something I can work with.
Hope somebody will find it useful xD

Love, Bob Walker!

That actually helps a lot, thank you very much.

Get the off the darn internet!

Master_Yoda wrote:Get the off the darn internet!

Heh

I can't remember the name of the author, but I was reading an interview once where the writer said that he only writes on an old laptop that has no wireless card. To take things further, he put glue into the ethernet port.

Unfortunately, though, there's always Freecell and Minesweeper...

Stand up, walk, circle 'round and 'round, shout things on the walls, bang my head on the wall. I dunno if these things are healthy, but moving kinetically (as if there is any other category) pumps the blood throughout the body, energizing the brain.

I usually think of good stuff when I move. I even have the best ideas for poetry when I'm in the bath.

But... How can you actually write without Google? .-. Lol.

What I do is copy what I write from TP, and then paste it in Google Translator. I'm easily distracted, so listening to what I'm writing helps me concentrate and it relaxes my obsessive editing disorder a bit. Lol. And of course, I'm an ESL writer, so it usually helps me when my languages get mixed up.

Writing late at night or early morning when you're too tired to censor your ideas.

EDIT: I use this while editing/rewriting.
I sit at the beach and think of science stuff; and think about med science research and all that.


And then I start writing!


For starting to write in general :
Chewing on some for of food while typing.

Yes! I do exactly as noni said. I always tend to write after 12, and definitely when I'm alone (of course, this excludes the times when I'm writing in class, or in the car).
When I'm sleep deprived I write like I'm trapped in some trance, like the only way to sanity (and to my bed) is if I'm done bleeding out all that wants to get out

Also, the internet is the world's greatest distraction. I take the wires off of the broadband .

I admire you guys who actually manage to turn off the Internet. I couldn't be writing like that - I'd keep recalling there was something really important I had to check on this or that site, or something o.e

Just write-- write anything, and give yourself a time limit. Even if what you get down is crap or irrelevant, it's still a skeleton and can be re-worked.

And you don't have to start from the beginning! Imagine your story and write what comes to you. Treat these little bits like gems to be cut and polished and strung together as on a necklace.