We all want to become better writers in our respective fields. Let us learn from the tips from the popular writers.
1. Write in the third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly. - Jonathan Franzen
2. Never pun your title, simpler is usually better: Lolita turns out to be a great title; couldn’t be simpler. - Martin Amis
3. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please will you do my job for me?” - C.S. Lewis
4. When you catch an adjective, kill it. -Mark Twain
5. Don’t start a paragraph with the same word as previous one. That goes doubly for sentences. - Martin Amis
6. Do not write long sentences. A sentence should not have more than ten or twelve words. - V.S. Naipaul
7. Don't go into great detail describing places and things. Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill. - Elmore Leonard
8. Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page. - Margaret Atwood
9. Read it aloud to yourself because that's the only way to be sure the rhythms of the sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too complex and subtle to be thought out – they can be got right only by ear). - Diana Athill
10. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is. - Neil Gaiman
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