8 essential tips for beginning writers

Writing is not as easy as it seems and being a writer doesn`t mean your will be typing the letters and creating bestsellers easily by sitting home in your slippers wrapped up like a burrito in the duvet. As a practising writer at PaperHelp and journalist, I can promise you that so I thought about sharing a few (8 to be strict) tips for former, very-very beginning writers out there, who are looking forward to making a career in this field.

1. Start with short stories

For the acclaimed author, it is a mistake to start by writing novels. "The problem with novels is that you can spend a year writing one and it doesn't turn out well, because you still haven't learned how to write. Instead, he advises writing a lot of short stories, little stories that, even if they are not of great quality, are good practice. "I dare you to write 52 bad stories. You can't." According to Bradbury, after so many attempts, "a wonderful story will surely come along".

2. Don't try to imitate your favourite authors

The author of The Martian Chronicles cites as one of the mistakes of his youth as a writer the attempt to imitate authors he admired, including Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells. "You can't be any of them," he says, "you can love them but you can't beat them".

3. Stuff yourself with metaphors

Bradbury sees himself not as a great novelist, but as a "collector of metaphors". For this reason, he recommends that the beginning writer "gobble up" quality literary works, in order to expand the tools with which he or she can later create his or her own. In this talk, he suggests reading a short story, a poem and an essay on any subject every night -he especially recommends George Bernard Shaw's works-. According to him, with this routine, you will end up "full of ideas and metaphors" in your head, which combined with your perspective and life experiences will generate new metaphors and ideas.

4. Stay away from friends who don't believe in you.

If you have people in your life who mock your desire to be a writer, "call them today and say goodbye to them," advises Bradbury.

5. Visit the library often

The author says he didn't go to college - he couldn't afford it - but instead "graduated from the library", a place he visited three or four times a week for 10 years. "Live in the library, not on your computer".

6. He writes for fun

Writing should be fun, not "serious business". You should write with joy. If you feel that writing a story becomes "work", throw it away and start doing something else. "If your mind goes blank in the middle of a story, it's your subconscious telling you that it doesn't like what you're doing.

7. Forget about making money

In his talk, Bradbury recounts how, throughout his writing life, he turned down large amounts of money in commissions, because he knew that if he wrote something he wasn't interested in for money, it would "destroy" him. "My wife and I were 37 years old when we were able to buy our first car". You should write what you would like to read.

8. Write about the first thing that comes to mind

"When I start writing I never know where I'm going, all my books have been surprises". The author recommends starting to write, to associate words that come to mind. "Hopefully, after the second page, characters will start to appear" from your "true essence". There you will discover things about yourself that you didn't know you had, "you won't know until you put it to the test".