Much of the science behind the writing craft needs to be discovered through reflection and practice. Having said that, you can still learn much from the experience and writing tips of successful writers.
Here are 40 great writing tips:
- “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.” — Elmore Leonard
- “If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.” — Ray Bradbury
- “Anything that can be said can be said clearly.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
- “Do not use foreign phrases, scientific words or jargon if there is an everyday equivalent.” — George Orwell
- “To impress people with your writing, stop trying to impress people with your writing.” — Josh Spector
- “Make your point and get out of the way.” — Morgan Housel
- “A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences.” — Scott Adams
- “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo Da Vinci
- “Every word is a choice and every choice has a consequence.” — Josh Spector
- “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on the broken glass.” — Anton Checkhov
- “Don’t just read good stuff, which can be intimidating. Enjoy some bad stuff, knowing you can write better.” — Roy Peter Clark
- “Books are not there to show how intelligent you are. Books are there to show your soul.” — Paulo Coelho
- “If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns.” — Stephen King
- “Novelty is what keeps readers reading.” — Julian Shapiro
- “Figure out what you want to say by deleting what you don’t.” — Josh Spector
- When you’re sharing what’s important to you, when you’re sharing the truth that you feel people need to say, you will find that the difficult parts of writing fall away.” — Ryan Holiday
- “When you write the first draft, you write it for yourself. When you rewrite it, you write it for everyone else.” — Stephen King
- “Your first draft is for generating and connecting ideas.” — Julian Shapiro
- “When you think you’re finished, retype it.” — Nicholas Baker
- “The process of writing your second draft is the process of making it look like you knew what you were doing all along.” — Neil Gaimain
- “The best editor for your writing is you in one month. Let enough time pass that you forget what you wrote.” — Julian Shapiro
- “People think you need to be inspired to write. No, you write in order to get inspired.” — Paul Jarvis
- “Great ideas emerge while writing—not before.” — Julian Shapiro
- “If you try to make more than one point, you’ll make no points.” — Benjamin Putano
- “Show up, show up, show up and after a while, the muse shows up too.” — Isabel Allende
- “Stop when you’ve got something left to say.” — Ernest Hemingway
- “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard” — Neil Gaiman
- “The difference between good writers and bad writers is good writers know when their writing is bad” — Dan Brown
- “Amateurs think about entertaining an audience. Professionals think about moving an audience from one point of view to another.” — Justin Mikolay
- “Ignore all the proffered rules and create your own, suitable for what you want to say.” — Michael Moorcock
- If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time — or the tools — to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King
- “You should care to share your soul and not to please other writers who will write a review that nobody is going to read.” — Paulo Coelho
- “Books are a mix of your and your friends’ experiences.” — Chuck Palahniuk
- “Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, yo’re doomed.” — Ray Bradbury
- “Don’t ask whether your idea is good or not. Write it. Share it. And see what happens.” — Nicolas Cole
- “All those I think who have lived as literary men will agree with me that three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.” — Anthony Trollope
- “You can’t be a good writer without being a devoted reader.” — J.K. Rowling
- “Replace half your commas with periods.” — David Perell
- “The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.” — William Zissner
- “Never use a long word where a short one will do.” — George Orwell
I hope these writing tips gave you some encouragement. Feel free to add more in the comments section.