“Its been about a year that I’m working on one story and I’ve just written five chapters. How do I write better and faster?”

This question came to us from the Go Teen Writers website, and it’s a fantastic one.

Here’s the very short oversimplified answer that nobody really likes:

Practice.

A big part of learning how to write whole books, learning how to write better stories, and learning how to write faster is by actually writing a lot. Just like folding laundry, making pancakes, doing yoga, or anything else that requires some dexterity or skill, nothing beats repetition.

But you probably already knew that, so with the obvious answer out of the way, let’s talk about some other techniques you might find helpful:

Separate storytelling from story writing.

“Writing” and “storytelling” are, in fact, totally separate skill sets. One does not automatically come as a BOGO with the other.”

K. M. Weiland, Are You A Writer or a Storyteller?

The first time I read this post from K. M. Weiland, she articulated something I had experienced but hadn’t yet applied language to. When I know what happens next in my story, I am able to write better. When I don’t know but I’m trying to write anyway, I struggle because I’m trying to work two skills at once. I’m trying to figure out how to tell the best story and how to best communicate that with the written word.

A very practical solution that has helped me came from author Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k. She learned when she was trying to increase her speed, that if she took 5-10 minutes to write a summary of what was going to happen in her scene, she could then write the scene itself much faster. In other words, she separated her storytelling from her story writing.

I now do this for nearly every scene I write, and it really does make a big difference.

Demand that you feel excited about every scene in your story.

Something else I understood better after reading Rachel Aaron’s book is something you probably have noticed too: When I’m excited about what’s happening in my scene, I’m excited to write my scene. And the inverse is true as well.

Well, Rachel took it one step further and asked herself why she would bother putting a scene in her book that she wasn’t excited about. Great question, right? Here’s how she says it:

Every day, while I was writing out my little description of what I was going to write … I would play the scene through in my mind and try to get excited about it. I’d look for all the cool little hooks, the parts that interested me most, and focus on those since they were obviously what made the scene cool. If I couldn’t find anything to get excited over, then I would change the scene, or get rid of it entirely. I decided then and there that, no matter how useful a scene might be for my plot, boring scenes had no place in my novels.

Rachel Aaron, 2k to 10k

That sends a hearty YES through my writer’s soul, but I’ll tell you this is easier said than done, to push yourself to have no boring scenes in your novel.

Write consistently.

I’m not a writer who insists the only way to write is to do it every day, but I do think there’s huge value in writing steadily and consistently (e.g. 3-4 times a week for 30 minutes) over writing a lot for one season (e.g. 50,000 words in one month.)

Anytime I have to take a week or two away from a work-in-progress, I come back feeling so disoriented. Then I have to spend writing time reading through it all so that I remember what was going on. If instead I can just read over what I wrote yesterday or the day before, and then launch into the day’s writing session, that’s much better for my pace and quality.

Don’t be afraid to put a book aside.

Writing an entire novel isn’t always a matter of just pushing yourself through to the end. A lot of the success comes from finding the right idea to carry you all the way through.

I wrote many, many, many, many story beginnings before finally landing on an idea that I loved enough to write the whole book. As time has passed, and as I’ve practiced, I’ve gotten better at figuring out what kind of ideas will sustain for me a novel and what will only interest me for a couple chapters.

If you’re stuck in a book or you’ve lost enthusiasm, don’t be afraid to set the story aside for a season! That’s not failing, and it’s not always “giving up” either. Both my debut novel and The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet spent some time on hold because I was stuck. While I focused on other ideas, eventually I became excited again about working on both those books and they were eventually published.

Any other thoughts, writing community? Any other techniques you want to offer for writing better and faster?

Also, speaking of writing consistently, today is day 78 in the Go Teen Writers 100-for-100 writing challenge! How’s it going?