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brian s blog quick tips on writing skip to main skip to sidebar brian s blog quick tips on writing how to write novels thursday april 30 2026 my best writing advice my best writing advice don t take anyone s advice about writing as gospel there is no gospel for writers what there is some general advice that novice writers especially can use to improve their writing even if you ve been writing a long time you should and i do keep looking for advice from other writers but once you ve got the basics and the advanced basics down you ll be looking for more specific advice because that s what you need advice that helps you the unique you that writes the books you truly want to write why all writers are unique writing is one of the most personal idiosyncratic activities around what works for one writer might take the life out of another writer s writing or at least lead them to do things that weaken some aspect of their writing each writer has to find his or her way and take what he or she can from every source and leave the rest it s hard but finding your own way requires going the wrong way a lot so should you take my advice about writing to not take anyone s advice about writing posted by brian yansky at 7 26 am no comments sunday april 5 2026 there are three rules for writing a novel there are three rules for writing the novel unfortunately no one knows what they are somerset maugham famous old writer guy unfortunately but today i think that there is only one rule for writing a novel fortunately i know what it is in your face somerset when i start writing as a discovery writer it s like looking at a mountain from a distance and imagining myself climbing that mountain from a distance it looks challenging but i can see myself doing it i ve done it before from far off it doesn t look that hard actually so o o o easy to fool yourself you can do it without even trying so i actually sit down to write and i get to the base of the mountain everything changes once i get up close the landscape becomes something very different it s wilderness confusing confounding hard the imagined stroll becomes a marathon a long distance climb through all kinds of terrain with bad weather and darkness and somewhat disturbing sounds all around but also exhilarating all of it breathtaking views beautiful sunsets and the wonderous terrain of the great outdoors you can t get to the good times if you don t struggle it s true when you re trying to become good at almost anything it s true in writing so here is my one rule in writing the only one you need keep writing if you expected some fancy and wise secret sorry it s the simple and hard truth the people who finish a novel do not let themselves not finish they keep writing knowing they ll have the chance to rewrite one rule finish that first draft know it will likely suck permit yourself to write a not great first draft so you can write a better second draft and maybe a third or even a fourth i generally write four drafts before i m done the first is always the hardest keep writing good luck posted by brian yansky at 12 07 pm no comments friday march 6 2026 how do you stand out as a writer how does your fiction stand out it s easier than you think we don t know where we come from and we don t know where we re going to while we re here we try to have a good time generally with mixed results we try to help others have a good time unless we re selfish jerks generally with mixed results still it makes for a pretty good story you can tell this story in a million different ways it can be long it can be short it can be realistic it can be fantasy or scifi or horror or comedy or whatever you want here s what you need to do be fascinated by humans and their stories and the human condition communicate that fascination to your reader on the pages you write keep trying to do this in your particular way that s what you have especially now with ai and all the many books out there only you can be you be you you ll write your best writing if you allow yourself to be yourself when you write it s not just your voice it s how you see the world it s how you live in it and express how you see and live in the world for me it s through fiction if like me you like to make up crazy worlds and characters and some pretty incredible possibly odd stories do that if it s realistic or horrific or futuristic do that don t handcuff yourself write what keeps you excited write you posted by brian yansky at 8 28 am no comments thursday february 26 2026 show don t tell nonsense what s it mean what does my sheepdog mean when he puts his head in my lap and stares up at me he might mean he loves me really really really he might mean he wants me to pet him please please please he might mean that he s feeling a little low and he would like to be told how good he is preferably for the rest of his waking life good dog good dog good dog maybe he means something else i haven t thought about he could for all i know be telling me that he s sorry for eating my tennis shoe which by the way wasn t nearly as good as he thought it would be do i always have to buy converse show don t tell yes but some gestures aren t clear they need context to make showing them add to the story and sometimes they need more than that sometimes it s more important to tell and violate the rule this one is definitely made to be broken on numerous occasions and be more specific expressing with precision the experience of the character how they re affected by what s happening or how they affect another and the way it fits with the rest of the story is vital the reader has to be in on what s going on in order to share the character s experience show tell it doesn t matter how you do that it just matters that you do posted by brian yansky at 1 33 pm no comments saturday february 14 2026 write a good story and they will come write a good story and they will come in austin texas it gets hot in the summer you can fry an egg on the pavement you can cook a whole five course meal if you stand in one place too long you start smoking how do you get that heat in writing everything has to be working in your writing and that includes the oft maligned element plot or story story isn t easy people realize it s hard to use language well hard to develop character create an interesting setting etc but story plot doesn t really get its due it lives in the worst fictional neighborhood and isn t invited to the fictional elements parties its job is undesirable too many writers think of it as an afterthought story is in fact seriously undervalued particularly in mfa programs at least that was my experience when i got my mfa a lot of writers who write beautifully fail miserably because they have no story to tell or what faint story they do have to tell isn t told well they expect readers to read their work because they write pretty sentences i m here to tell you pretty sentences aren t enough even though i love good sentences the truth is most readers will forgive some language issues if you can tell a good story but if you have no story great language isn t going to keep them reading they get bored ideally you write well and tell a good story but story is as important as writing well and forget that crap about writing what you know what you need to do is write about what you can imagine you don t have to know your story when you start a first draft but by the time you write the end you should have a pretty good idea of the major moves in your plot discover in your first draft those major moves and what happens in between them isn t so hard to fill in when you write your second good luck and write well posted by brian yansky at 6 14 pm no comments friday january 9 2026 write better write faster with this one hack write better write faster with this one hack here s a hack to help you write faster and better in first draft this maybe particularly helpful for discovery writers though outliners can use it too the thing is when we start a chapter we are most vulnerable to doubting our ability to write the chapter this may lead to procrastination which can lead to all kinds of bad habits scrolling raiding the fridge with abandon too much coffee watching bad streaming series anything but writing so to get you started don t just discovery write the chapter discovery write a little summary of the chapter before you write the actual chapter write a paragraph or two or three and maybe some dialogue in the tone of the chapter around the characters you think might be in the chapter and what they re doing write whatever comes into your head revise as you write it try to get down what you want to happen in the chapter write some dialogue if it comes to you it often does to me when i m trying to write this you cannot spend long on this ten or fifteen minutes no more do it right after you ve finished the last chapter you re really focusing on what happens in the chapter so this is mostly plot however if you re going to bring in a new character you can add a bit of description of the character write any notes to yourself that might help for example the character is angry in this chapter make sure you show the anger build as the chapter goes along remember this is for your eyes only you re writing this to yourself you and you you ll be surprised how this helps you write a better and faster chapter posted by brian yansky at 4 10 am no comments labels hacks novels write better write faster wednesday december 17 2025 writing in the zone how to get there i believe a lot of elements of writing can be taught an inexperienced writer who finds the right teacher right for him or her i mean can learn a lot about things like characterization plot setting novel landscape pacing even to a certain extent paragraphing and sentences putting it all together in a unique and powerful way though is something the writer has to learn to do himself herself and so the reason writing programs give a lot of people mfas who never publish or who publish very little i got an mfa after teaching myself writing by reading to me the single most important thing besides writing itself a writer can do to improve and writing did the mfa help my writing yes is getting an mfa for everybody no some it won t help some don t need it when i was learning the martial art taekwondo i realized the importance of breaking down moves we d work on part of a kick and then another part and then another part it would take a long time to put it all together and be able to do a kick right and then even longer to be able to use the kick in combination with other movements it would take still longer to be effective sparring with the kick and other movements some people never could get there they knew what they should do but they couldn t make their bodies do it or they couldn t let their bodies do it some people could do it fairly well only a few were really good writing is even more difficult still i think most writing s moves can be analyzed by isolating each aspect of writing and then improving them do this work with intension and find your way and you will write some good work are there some parts of writing that can t be taught sure the writer s unique way of looking at the world the writer s style too can t really be taught though it can be developed the writer s particular feel for language is i think like personality and there s that one very magical part to writing like with taekwondo everything has to work together when you ve drafted and revised your work the writer has to write with intension without thinking about what they re doing that s the place a writer needs to get a kind of forgetting when athletes talk about being in the zone that s what they re talking about that s the secret you have to learn everything you can about writing and then forget it when you get lost in the writing posted by brian yansky at 11 58 am no comments labels fiction tips find your way writing novels older posts home 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