5 Ways to Improve Your Writing

I'm sharing 5 ways to improve your writing. These should be helpful for writers at all levels, but especially those who are a little bit more advanced and ready to really dig in and get better.

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[BooksNChili]

The eyeshadow with the shirt, yes ma'am. Alexa giving us the good tips with the good looks

[theatheistpaladin]

I had "white room syndrome." I studied "descriptive writing" to get over it. Plenty of good books on that if you search for it.

[charlie.cummings]

Off the top off my head, my weaknesses are:
- Tell not show
- Passive voice
- White room
- Run-on dialogue/conversations

[scarlet]

My weakness is always "the marathon of the middle." I think this happens to all of us who write longer fiction. I find myself having to force the middle bc I get so bored and have a crash of confidence that leads me to question everything. But I've learned to never go back and change the beginning when I'm in the middle

[Anon]

On dramatization; I'm rewriting a novel I drafted when I was a kid, and one of the things I need to fix is that I was a notorious vital-scene skipper! Anything I thought was "too hard" I would cut away from and then come back in the next scene with it already over, and I lost a lot of dramatic tension doing that. I think the style came from FFN chapter style to use cliffhangers and then gloss past them? Or maybe my misinterpreting that style lol

[ninjakid]

My biggest weakness is definitely telling instead of showing. I also struggle with giving each character their own voice when writing dialogue.

[lostinabookcase]

My weaknesses: purple prose and wanting to describe everything, from the trim in the room to every mote of dust floating in the air.
Gotta rein it in a bit. Just a bit :)

[jeffersota]

That green goes excellently with your hair. You did a great job bringing your look together!

[booksnlipstick]

Could you do a video on action tags vs dialogue tags? It would be helpful

[dylantd]

I don't know if you've done a video on it, but I'd like a breakdown of the traditional YA novel... As in how much should be 'conversations', how much should be 'character devlopment' and how much should be 'main story'... I guess? I have an issue of only writing main story plots and can't really work out what's a good amount of subplot before it because more developed than the main story... So I can't really balance the plots of the story.

[Vickynger]

Im so bad at writing emotions... i do the opposite of melodrama lol
im not very in touch with my own emotions i guess so having my characters go through them is so hard for me to write... everybody is always super subtle and hiding their feelings and stuff like that in my books... but not everybody is like that! and i need to work on that.

[cathyl]

This was really helpful. I never heard it called "white room syndrome" but much of my previous writing came out of black box play writing. The result is that my first draft of my first novel weighed in at about 30k words.

[TheJamation]

I can honestly say Alexa has helped me get back into reading again. I can't read that fast compared to when I was a kid, can read maybe a book in three months. But even from the little bits and pieces I'm reading I've already started noticing where my skill in pacing lacks compared to others in YA Fantasy. I also personally have a massive problem with too much dialogue. My characters just sit in a white room and talk to each other for days. Thank you for always posting Alexa! Normally I just smile and nod at advice/list videos like this, but Alexa is one of the few YouTubers that makes me hold my writing and go "Look. Look at it and see what it can become."

[rachel]

I just figured out my worst writing problem, filtering. I never knew the name for it. I always knew something was wrong with what I was doing, I just didn't know what it was exactly. This was so informative. Thank you so much!❤

[lexhasgoats]

I think it is great to use action tags instead of/mixed with dialogue tags, and not only can they show personality traits, I try to use them to show whatever emotions the characters are feeling. Since you can only write in one POV (unless you're writing omniscient) then it can be a helpful way to give an insight into the thoughts of the other characters present in the scene.

[lostinabookcase]

"It's a bird, they fly."
*penguin* "Exxxcuse me!!"

[livmilesparanormalromanceb]

I keep switching between your and Kat's channels like "Somebody feed Thank you!! ❤

[tessa]

First I gotta say I was laughing SO hard like, the whole time. "Basic ass verb" is right 😂😂👏 You were on one with this video and I'm living for it

I took your advice from a previous video and kind of flung myself head long into reading actual BOOKS. Fanfic rocks, but it really does make you lazy in certain respects and the difference has been BONKERS. Being able to be objective about your own strengths and weaknesses is great advice. I've gone into reading an amazing book and come out just distraught thinking I couldn't possibly ever be at that level....Super false, I've found out. Writing is learning. Who'd have thought? 😂

I think another way is also realizing there's more than one style. Some people work at scenes until they are tight and perfect even in drafts, others need to write in layers. It's a lot about understanding how your own mind works as well.

Kay, long ass comment. I'm done now. Great vid!

[gem]

"It's a bird! They fly."
*Penguin go sad*

[rainlathrop]

I so agree with the reading tip. I haven't ever used it to emulate, though I think that might be really helpful but I just remember last summer when I had a bunch of time to read and I was also writing, I was writing so much better without even trying, just because my brain was thinking in the way the story had been written and it was great!