The Most Powerful Exercises To Improve Your Writing

If you’ve got aspirations of being a successful writer, it can be helpful to practice your craft. Even if words tumble out naturally, there are tips you can try to help improve your style and content. Here are a few easy but powerful exercises which will make a huge difference to the quality of your writing.

Omit adverbs

Adverbs are the words in a sentence which modify the verb, typically ending in -ly. Examples include quickly, easily, gently etc. There’s nothing wrong with adverbs in a sentence but they can make your writing lazy. By leaving out adverbs as an experiment, you’ll find more descriptive ways to get your message across and your sentences will be much sharper too.

Cover up your screen

It’s easy to get distracted by the editing when you’re supposed to be writing, and this can seriously hamper the amount you produce. Constantly going back over what you’ve already written doesn’t help anyone but it’s a hard habit to break. To give yourself the freedom to focus on the words which are coming next, try covering up your screen. Turn the brightness right down so you can’t see what you’re typing or you could always type with your eyes closed! You need to do a bit more editing at the end but the difference in your productivity will make it more than worthwhile.

Try starting halfway through

Getting the perfect start can be a real block for some people so scrap that and move along a bit further. Starting halfway through takes away the pressure to create an impactful beginning, and allows you to enter the story when it’s already established. Once you’re up and running and have been able to let the writing develop, you can go back and fill in the missing first section.

Taking a look at other examples of great writing can also help, and taking time out to enjoy a book can be a positive way to move forward. Check out www.vujar.com for some of the best online books that are available at your fingertips, whenever you want.

The rocky roads taken by some of the world’s top writers

The success of many famous authors did not happen overnight and the road to literary stardom for many of the world’s top writers was a long and winding one which contained many roadblocks along the way. If you are budding writer and need a bit of inspiration, consider the paths these famous writers took.

Stephen King

The undisputed godfather of horror fiction, Stephen King worked in a number of jobs before he got his big break in writing. He worked at an industrial laundry, a gas station and as a janitor while trying to get his writing career off the ground. When he had completed to manuscript for his first novel Carrie, he took it to 30 different publishers who all rejected it. Feeling disheartened, he threw the manuscript away before his wife Tabatha – who would herself go on to be famous writer – recovered it and urged him not to give up.

Dr Seuss

An absolute staple of most childhood reading, it’s very hard to imagine a world without Dr Seuss. However, his first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was turned down 27 times before finally getting snapped up and, as they say, the rest is history.

JK Rowling

Things were anything put magical for JK Rowling when she first started writing about the wizard Harry Potter. She was living as a single mother in Edinburgh and on welfare. She was also suffering from depression and could not afford to pay for childcare. Therefore she had to take her young daughter with her when she sat in coffee shops all day to write her first Harry Potter manuscript. She then had to cope with the book being turned down 12 times before finally get her big break.

Find more reading and writing inspiration with the books from www.vujar.com.