Writer’s Skills

1) Make it concise

Ernest Hemingway, one of my writing idols, used as few words as possible to arrive at what he was trying to say. I’m not often concise, but I try to be - summarizing feelings, thoughts, emotions into just a few sentences.

My mother has a saying, she says: “That was like a shotgun blast to the face.”

I want my writing to be quick, effective, simple: a shotgun blast to the face.

Make it powerful, make it count, in so few words.

2) Enter with a feeling

When I enter contests on Prose, I access how it makes me feel. Then I pick a memory. Then I keep writing.

3) Write out the feeling

While writing for contests on Prose, I start with the feeling, but then I tie in a plot to that feeling.

Like therapists say, “How does that make you feel?”

It feels like hell, but in the best way possible.

4) Edit feeling

I go through my pieces and cut a lot of stuff. If it doesn’t follow through with the overall point of my piece, then it gets cut. I want it to make sense, to be easy to follow.

5) Make it flow

I don’t want to be a choppy writer. I want my ideas to run together seemlessly. I try to make the reader want to follow my story, what I’m trying to say.

Sometimes I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but these five writing tactics help.