The Ultimate Hack to Writing Better

Let’s face it, writing can be tiring. Most writers have a love-hate relationship with the writing process. In his interview with the New York Times, author of the Hannibal series, Thomas Harris III says, “the very act of writing is a kind of torment. Sometimes you really have to shove and grunt and sweat. Some days you go to your office and you’re the only one who shows up, none of the characters show up, and you sit there by yourself, feeling like an idiot. And some days everybody shows up ready to work. You have to show up at your office every day. If an idea comes by, you want to be there to get it in.” Fellow novelist, Stephen King, lent body to this by saying if writing is sometimes tedious for other authors, to Harris it is like “writhing on the floor in agonies of frustration.”

As writers, we are always on the conquest for hacks that will make the writing process easier and the product- books, articles, poems, listicles, etc- better. We have learned and come up with ways to hack through writer’s block and made the words leap off the reader’s page. However, there is one tool that works like a charm and makes your writing more poignant. Oddly, we don’t talk about it nearly as much as we talk about things like “show, don’t tell” and how important reading is to the writing process.

This magic potion is a very simple one, but we all know simplicity is the most intriguing expression of complexity. The hack is experiencing or what I fondly call, “just go the heck out, please.” As writers, we live in our heads, words, and in our own little worlds. I should know. I am guilty of it. While there is nothing wrong with always reading, going through your social media feed, or staying indoors, they can, over time, make cranking out words harder. Writers don’t just write, they curate the experiences of different people in different worlds, real or imagined, and find themselves at the heart of those experiences. The best writers are students of life, with colorful experiences under their pen. And trust me, experience is not in your room, homes.

Yes, you can write without this hack. I for one have written many things thanks to vicarious experience…