Cathy Hopkins’ Top 10 Writing Tips

In this post, we share English novelist, Cathy Hopkins’ Top 10 Writing Tips.

Cathy Hopkins is an English novelist, best known for her teenage books Mates, Dates series. She was born 23 January 1953

She lived in Kenya from the age of 5–11. In 1987, she did a series of humour books with cartoonist Gray Jolliffe which made her want to become a writer.

She is also the author of these women’s popular fiction novels: The Kicking the Bucket List, Dancing Over the Hill, and Blast From the Past.

We found these tips for writing on her website.

Cathy Hopkins’ Top 10 Writing Tips

1. Use your five senses when writing a scene: sight – what a place looks like, how it sounds, how it smells, and tastes? And lastly, how it feels.
2. Write every day. Don’t blab your story out to everyone. Only show it to those who will give constructive criticism.
3. Create a sympathetic character that readers will like. Think about what they want more than anything in the world. Then think about lots of things that can get in their way. Then there’s your book.
4. Raise questions early on in your book and delay the answers to make readers want to read on to find out what happens.
5. Carry a notebook, as you never know when inspiration will strike.
6. Write like you speak. Don’t throw anything you write away as years later, it may spark something off.
7. Write the kind of stories you’d like to read.
8. Write the first draft freely without judging it then rewrite with the rational/logical side of your brain.
9. Read a lot.
10. Never give up. Persevere through rejection. Loads of famous novelists had their books rejected first time round but were successful because they didn’t give up.

Source for tips: Cathy Hopkins FAQs

Source for image

 by Amanda Patterson

If you enjoyed this, you will love:

1. Haruki Murakami On Writing
2. Laini Taylor: 5 Really Useful Writing Tips
3. William Safire’s 33 Fumblerules Of Grammar
4. Tamora Pierce On How To Deal With Writer’s Block
5. Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules For Writers
6. Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules For Writing Fiction
7. Marisha Pessl Answers 5 Questions On Writing
8. A.L. Kennedy’s 10 Rules for Writing Fiction
9. Anne Enright’s 10 Rules For Writing Fiction
10. Writing Advice From The World’s Most Famous Authors

TIP: If you want help writing a book, buy The Novel Writing Exercises Workbook.