Helen Moss’s 5 Top Tips for Writers: A blog by Amelia Year 10

The Young Norfolk Writing Competition is open to 11-18 years old across Norfolk. It aims to find the freshest and boldest voices across Norfolk. A variety of work can be entered including graphic stories, scripts, essays, lyrics, poems and stories. The competition offers some fantastic prizes including professional mentoring from a writer. For more information including full rules and how to enter see Writers’ Centre Norwich’s website.

The deadline for the Young Writers’ Competition is fast approaching (4th June 2018.) However don’t panic! Half term offers a prime time to get creative. Yet that’s often easier said than done. Often the most difficult thing to do is start. I bet all of us have looked at an empty page at one point and been utterly stuck on how to fill it. Creating an idea takes courage and confidence.

A few weeks ago the brilliant Helen Moss visited our school. I asked her what her 5 top tips for writers were. Below is her fantastic reply:

1. If you are writing a story, really think about what your main character really wants, and the obstacles that stand in their way.

2. Zooming in on one or two key details is often more powerful than a long description.

3. Make your opening lines as special as possible – whether they are beautiful, gripping, intriguing or laugh-out loud. But don’t get hung up on getting the beginning just right from the start. Keep going. You can always go back and change those first lines later – often you won’t really know what they should be until you know the ending.

4. Read your work out loud to anyone who will listen (or just to yourself). It’s the best way to pick up errors, weed out boring bits and improve sentences that don’t flow.

5. Don’t worry if you suddenly lose confidence and a little voice tells you that your work is a MASSIVE pile of drivelling GIBBERISH and literally the WORST thing EVER written in the entire UNIVERSE. This is normal. Keep going. Be patient, and there will almost always be a wonderful moment of sudden insight when you find the key that unlocks the whole story/poem and it begins to fall in to place. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect. Only you can write your story – just be the truest version of the writer you can.

Next time you have writers’ block why not read the above words. They offer not only great advice but also the all-important belief and support that we need to create. So I challenge to you to pick up a pen and let your imagination run wild. Fill your page with what matters to you….

 

Good Luck!