Jennifer Niven’s Top 12 Writing Tips

Writers Write shares writing tips and resources. In this post, we share Jennifer Niven’s Top 12 Writing Tips.

Jennifer Niven is an American author who writes both fiction and non-fiction books. She was born 14 May 1968.

She is an Emmy Award-winning New York Times and international bestselling author of nine books.

Her novels for adults include American Blonde and Becoming Clementine. Her first book for young adults, All the Bright Places, was published in 2015. It was made into a film of the same name.

Her nonfiction books include The Ice Master and The Aqua-Net Diaries.

She also oversees Germ, a literary and lifestyle web magazine for girls and boys age high school and beyond. The magazine grew out of All the Bright Places, and it celebrates beginnings, futures, and all the moments in between.

Over the years, she and her writer mother, Penelope Niven created this writing advice for aspiring authors. We are sharing it as Jennifer Niven’s top 12 writing tips.

Jennifer Niven’s Top 12 Writing Tips

1. A book should not be so long and thick that it has to be hauled around in a wheelbarrow. Historically, my mom (Penelope Niven) wrote very long books. At least three of them exceed 800 pages. Now, there is the rare exception when a book needs to be that long. However, most books do not. One of my high school teachers used to jot ‘pure economy of word’ across the top of my essays, and I’ve never forgotten it. There’s power in writing succinctly.
2. If you are bored writing something, people will most likely be bored reading it. I remember this every time I write a scene and find my attention wandering off. If you reread your own work and get the urge to skip through certain parts, you probably need to cut, edit, or replace.
3. Read. Reading opens your mind, shows you what’s out there, and gives you ideas. That said, you have to be careful what you read when in the throes of writing because the last thing you want to do is become an unintentional mimic. (High school Jennifer, I’m talking to you. Stop reading so much Ray Bradbury!).
4. Don’t enter your pin numbers all at once. Years ago, I was on a call with a department store, and the automated voice said, ‘Please enter your pin. Do not enter all the numbers at one time.’ New writers often ask the secret to writing a book because the idea of creating something so long is daunting. I tell them not to focus on the entire book because it will only overwhelm you. Instead, focus on one line or chapter at a time..
5. Count the pages. Back when I was six, my mom would hand me a stack of paper and I’d write until I ran out of pages. I would simply finish the story, no matter where I was in it (which made for some very rushed endings). Part of the challenge of writing is actually showing up to do the work. Try giving yourself a daily quota, no matter how big or small, by counting the pages or words.
6. Let yourself cry. You need to be willing to let yourself cry (or laugh or feel), because if you don’t cry/laugh/feel while writing your story, how do you expect your reader to?.
7. Be willing to write garbage. Don’t worry about being perfect because there’s no such thing. I know many talented writers who don’t finish projects. The reason? At some point they become paralysed by trying to make it perfect. You have to be able to write garbage and leave it alone. Once you’re done with a draft, you can go back, dig in, and make it all sing..
8. Know when to let the book go. There comes a time in a book’s life, once the big edits are done, when it’s easy to fret about every comma and word choice. This was always my mother’s cue to say, ‘Am I going to have to fly out to California and take the book away from you?’ At some point, you have to let the book be read by other people..
9. You can’t freak out and write a book at the same time. There are so many reasons not to write. Writers are great at finding every excuse under the sun — I don’t have enough time/energy/inspiration, I’ll never be able to write anything good. But my mom always told me, ‘to write well, to do anything well, you have to be able to breathe.’ Remember that much of writing is play. Don’t forget to enjoy it..
10. Learn to have the soul of an angel and the hide of an armadillo. When you’re pouring your heart onto the page, you don’t always think about the people in the world who are waiting to read your stories and maybe hate them and say critical or even untrue things about them in print. You have to be able to let yourself cry (see number six) and you also have to be able to — as Taylor Swift sings — shake it off..
11. Check it in the bus locker. Things (i.e. life) will always get in the way of writing, but you need to learn to compartmentalise. My mom wrote in her memoir, Swimming Lessons, ‘When I write, I write — focusing on that act as if it were all in the world I had to do.’
12. Write the kind of book you’d like to read. Every book Mom and I have written was a story we wanted to read. Write what inspires you, whatever that may be. Write what you love.

We hope you enjoyed Jenifer Niven’s Top 12 Writing Tips.

Source: Let Yourself Cry: My Top Twelve Writing Tips
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 by Amanda Patterson

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