I Want To Help You | Going Back to The Basics of Writing

 101 Writing Basics | part one 

I Want To Help You | Going Back to The Basics of Writing 

101 Writing Basics | part one

Something I’ve been wanting to do is share about getting back to the basics of writing. What is writing in simple terms? How do you write a story? 

When I first started out writing, I had SO MANY QUESTIONS. There was so much I didn’t understand. But I wanted to understand. I wanted to learn. I wanted to write. So I started researching and learning as much as I possibly could. 

It was hard to find good advice even for the simple questions I had. It was even harder (nary impossible) for me to find advice from a Christian perspective when I was starting out (years later I have found some wonderful Christian blogs and friends and writer help that’s been invaluable but at the beginning I didn’t know where to look or even if what I was wanting existed). 

So, I went to the only place I knew to get advice on writing—real advice I could understand and see that advice in action. I turned to books. Books become my guide on how to write. Whatever I didn’t understand or was still hard for me to figure out, I took to God. God is the reason I am able to write. Without Him I would not be a writer. 

If you know me and my story then you know that as a kid I couldn’t read until God saved my life and I became a Christian. Then I could read for the first time in my life. Then years later writing simple school essays was the hardest thing for me. I couldn’t understand writing. Even the simplest of writing concepts were like a different language to me. Just to write a simple 300 word paper (about 3 paragraphs) would take me up to three months to write. 

Becoming a writer was never on my radar. Never in a million years would I believe I would be a writer. God had other plans for me. Over a series of events and by God’s strength and teaching I wrote a full length novel in 30 days. My life changed. 

Now here I am years later writing stories and working on becoming an author. I have always loved stories ever since I was a little girl. Now I’m the girl writing stories, stories I love and that are near and dear to my heart. 

None of this would have been possible without God by my side walking me through each and every step and giving me the stories and words to write and tell. 

When I started writing, I had so many questions. How do you write a character? What is a chapter? How do you write dialogue and make it sound realistic? What is a scene? How do you build a world for your story? How do you plot a story? What are subplots? The questions kept coming. Now some of these things I was able to have answered by handy google but then I could understand what they were trying to say, but I wanted examples. 

So I went to books. I read so many books and looked at different elements and ways different writers wrote and watched films and tried to soak in as much story as I could to be able to write. I’m an extreme planner and I like knowing everything beforehand so this was important for me to learn writing before just writing. I learned so much and found many methods that worked for me. It doesn’t have to be a one size fits all or even a “once you find this method you must stick with it” kind of thing. Over the years my writing has changed and matured and has gone through many seasons which are normal and good. It shows growth. Still, the basics remain. 

When I first started writing, I wished there could have been someone helping me out through the process. Though I didn’t have a “person” I did have God which was all I needed! He gave me the tools I needed to write and tell stories and has led me to this part of my life—my story. He is the greatest storyteller after all. 

After all I’ve learned, and yes I am still learning, I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning new things, I want to be your writing guide. I want to help teach you the basics of writing in a way that is easy to understand. I want to be a lighthouse guiding you to your writing dreams through a sea of information that may be confusing. I want to help you along this journey and give you the tools and resources to make your writing dreams come true. I want to show you the same methods I use in my writing to create stories. I want to help answer all those questions on writing you may have. I want to encourage you in your writing and faith and all that God has placed inside of you. 

This is my goal and desire. 

Through these writing posts (and two super exciting projects I’m working on that will be hopefully coming soon *winks*) I hope to achieve this! 

Make sure to come back NEXT WEEK for the second part of this blog series! 

*if you have any questions or topics you’d like me to cover or answer, then please feel free to comment them below!