So You Wanna Be A Writer: Covering the Basics for New Writers

Brittany Luckham
Jul 19
10 min read

The wonderful thing about writing is that you don’t have to wait to start. Unlike picking up the violin, writing doesn’t require you to wait three months learning about the instrument and how to read sheet music before you can start to play. With writing, you can learn and hone your craft as you go.

An open notebook, a phone, and a water bottle lying on a white striped sheet.

Therefore, by no means do you have to know everything about what I advise below. If you know how to read and how to write (print, type, dictate, etc.), you can be a writer.

More of a Writer Than You Think

You’re a rookie, a newbie, a novice, to the writing craft. My first piece of advice is to take stock of the things you’ve already written. But I haven’t written anything yet! What do you mean!? Well, you might not have written a whole novel, but I’m willing to bet you’ve taken notes for school, typed an email, sent a text, or written a speech for a presentation. Even that two-page short story you had to write in 7th grade counts.

See what I’ve come to realize is that we’re all writers in some capacity. Maybe not creative fiction writers, but writers nonetheless. You’re not starting from a completely blank slate. Even if you’ve somehow gotten away with never having written a single word in your life thus far, I also bet that if you’ve shown some interest in writing, you’ve probably read a lot too: books, poems, blogs, social media posts, fanfiction. Reading counts as writing experience. Watching movies and engaging with TV shows counts as writing experience. How? Because it teaches you about storytelling, it’s only a different medium.

Formatting, Grammar, and Punctuation

As I mentioned above, you don’t have to be an expert on formatting, grammar, or punctuation to start writing. That being said, it helps to know the rules, if only so you can break them effectively.

Formatting

In Western society, books are formatted from left to right, front to back. By comparison, manga (graphic novels) in Japan are formatted back to front. Some East Asian scripts are written vertically, rather than horizontally. I’m going to focus on formatting as I know it in the West. Let’s start broadly and work our way inwards.

Books are typically formatted using a justified alignment, rather than a strictly left alignment. Pick up any book on your shelf and you’ll notice the sides of the paragraphs align with the margins. There’s much more wiggle room if you’re writing poetry to play around with centre and right alignments, but even then, they’re generally left-aligned.

Each new paragraph is indented. There are two exceptions. The first is if a chapter begins with a drop cap. A drop cap is when the first letter in the first sentence is larger than the rest of the text. The second is if there is a scene break. If there is a visual marker, such as a string of asterisks, the next paragraph can begin indented or not, but if there is simply a blank line left, then the following paragraph isn’t indented, but the one after that will be. See the examples below.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque faucibus ex sapien vitae pellentesque sem placerat. In id cursus mi pretium tellus duis convallis. Tempus leo eu aenean sed diam urna tempor. Pulvinar vivamus fringilla lacus nec metus bibendum egestas. Iaculis massa nisl malesuada lacinia integer nunc posuere. Ut hendrerit semper vel class aptent taciti sociosqu. Ad litora torquent per conubia nostra inceptos himenaeos.

Blank line and no indent, or…

***

Visual marker and an indent.

A combination of the above is also acceptable (knowing the rules so you can break them, remember?).

But wait, how do you separate a story into paragraphs? Generally, you don’t want a bunch of single-word or single-line paragraphs one after the other. There is a handy acronym to keep in mind, though. TiP ToP stands for Time, Place, Topic, and Person. Any time one of those four things changes, a new paragraph is started.

This is especially important in dialogue. When a new character (Person) is speaking, it requires a new paragraph. For example:

“Hello, my name is Brittany,” she said to the girl sitting across from her.

“Hi, I’m Claire,” the girl replied.

Not…

“Hello, my name is Brittany,” she said to the girl sitting across from her. “Hi, I’m Claire,” the girl replied.

Grammar and Punctuation

If English is not your first language, it’s ok if you decide to write in English and make grammar mistakes. It’s expected. No native speaker is going to take offense. If you are a native speaker, well, I expect a higher degree of ability.

Writing with the intent of publishing includes the expectation of an error-free, or almost error-free, manuscript. This does not apply to first drafts. Or even second drafts. It applies to whatever draft you intend to submit to a professional agent or editor.

But you’re just a beginner, so don’t take it too seriously, alright? Cover the basics and worry about perfecting them later. Like dialogue rules. Did I know how to format dialogue when I first started writing? A little bit, but only because I was such an avid reader. Learning the deeper details came much, much later.

As a starting point, below is my favourite example as a demonstration of formatting and punctuating dialogue from this Tumblr post.

“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during your story’s dialogue,” she said with a smile.

“Unless you are following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath and sat back down after making the clarifying statement.

“However,” she added, shifting in her seat, “it’s appropriate to use a comma if there’s action in the middle of a sentence.”

“True.” She glanced at the others. “You can also end with a period if you include an action between two separate statements.”

“And–” she waved a pen as though to underline her statement–“if you’re interrupting a sentence with an action, you need to type two hyphens to make an en-dash.”

Planning vs. Pantsing

When you first start writing, I recommend just jumping into it. You won’t know if you’re more of a plotter or a pantser (writing by the seat of your pants) unless you write something and find out. Keep in mind, most people sit somewhere on a linear spectrum between the two.

I started as a pantser, though I knew in my heart I was more of a plotter. My issue was that I didn’t know how to plot effectively. I knew you needed characters, and scenes, and a world to put everything in, but I didn’t know how much I needed.

A lot happens throughout a book, and I found that through pantsing, I’d throw in scenes just to have more plot, or I’d drag a scene out with too much description just to hit the word count. I’ll admit, I floundered when it came to learning how to plot for at least one too many years before I figured it out. Of course, this is par for the course. You learn as you go.

This is why I’m putting together this article to share what I needed to hear and learn about when I first started. There’s a plethora of advice out there, and the so-called “rules” of writing, it’s difficult to hack away at the overgrown grasses of nonsense and find your path of advice that works for you.

Please note: take all advice with a grain of salt (even mine). You’re going to find advice that isn’t meant for you, or advice that isn’t meant for a beginner, or a first draft, or even your first story. I suggest seeking advice from writers/authors you admire, a bonus if you’ve read their work.

Character, Plot, Worldbuilding

A book needs three things: character(s), plot, and worldbuilding (yes, even for books set in our world). Every writer usually struggles with at least one of these three things. If I haven’t made it clear yet, mine was plot. I had characters and a cool world to put them in, but what happens in the story, again? I have no idea. Until recently, I had never quite wrapped my head around the 3 or 4-act structure.

Close Reading for Plot

The number one thing I recommend if you want to learn about plot is to do a close reading. A close reading is when you choose a book, the more familiar you are with it, the better. However, you can choose any book: I’d likely choose a standalone over a series, and something quick, such as a thriller or romance novel.

Then, you start reading either with a notebook close by or you can annotate directly in the margins of the book to record everything that happens, every main point or scene in each chapter. I did this with The Mask Collectors by Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer, which had very short chapters, so often there was only one bullet point per chapter. Then you can type it up into one document or look over your notes and gain an understanding of all the little pieces that make up a whole book. I’ve shared my close reading in this Google Doc.

Close reading is why I’ve included Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose in the recommended reading section below, because it goes into more detail about how to, well…read like a writer.

Developing The Characters

Victoria Schwab is easily one of my favourite authors. When she creates her characters, she asks herself three questions:

What is this character’s greatest fear?
What do they want most of all?
What are they willing to do to get it?

What I like about these questions is that they imply that in order for the character to get what they want, they have to face their biggest fear, which just makes for great storytelling.

Building The World

Writers like Schwab and Ally Carter also create their world through their characters, or vice versa. It’s not necessarily about “where does this story take place?” or “what fantastical world can I put them in?” A good fictional world meets the characters where they are.

Ally Carter builds her world based on these four questions:

What is a world that is going to result in the most interesting characters?
What are the things that are true for everyone in this world?
What are the things that are true for just my characters?
What are the secret things that only my characters know?

You can learn more about Carter’s writing advice in the book review below.

Writing Craft For Teens by a YA Author

Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book by Ally Carter Book Review

brittany-notolux.medium.com

Final Thoughts

We covered formatting, grammar, and punctuation, planning vs. pantsing, and character, plot, and worldbuilding. For those last three, I am considering making a separate article or series. Comment below if you have any interest in that. I’d especially like to go more into character: arcs, emotional beats, building a backstory, etc.

As I mentioned before, take all writing advice, including mine, with a grain of salt. Some of it will apply to you, some of it won’t. That is completely ok. I wrote this because I wanted to share what I needed to hear when I first started writing, but also I wanted to offer advice for beginners outside of just: write and read a lot. Which you should still do, but I hope this article has given you something a bit more tangible to work with.

P.S.

After drafting this article, I came across a post on Tumblr from a new writer filled with anxiety, displeased with their writing thus far, and wanting advice about what to do. So, here’s some much-needed reassurance for the rookies out there.

When you first start writing, don’t worry about plot, character, or worldbuilding. Focus on writing sentences — good sentences. Sentences that use active voice and all the flowery language you want. Focus on playing around with metaphors and literary devices. Learn how to write good sentences first. Learn about description, infodumping, and writing action. Plot, pacing, character creation, and development, that can all come later. You can learn those things one at a time, in as many pieces and steps as you need to.

Moreover, the first few things you write may only be a couple hundred words. That’s ok. Do not try to tackle a novel at the outset. You need to be ok with failing one moment and then picking up another idea in the next. Writing is a practice. It is a craft. You get better the longer you do it. Learn about the ingredients before you try to make the meal.

Start with one-page stories, then two, then three, and so on. Set a page goal and write until you reach that goal. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good, or that you can only pull a single line that is any good from it. What matters is that you write and then you read it over and see where you still need to improve.

Also, you can edit that one-page story afterward. You can start a second draft and make revisions and changes, big and small. You can write several versions of the same story if you have too many ideas.

The point is, the first idea you have, the first twenty ideas you have, aren’t likely to pan out. That’s normal. That’s expected. That’s ok. Take a breath and try again.

Recommended Resources

Reading

Books

I read all but one for free through Project Gutenberg and my library.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk (Free eBook: Project Gutenberg)
The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth
Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book? by Ally Carter
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

My Articles

Watching/Listening

Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Lectures on YouTube
No Write Way Podcast by V. E. Schwab