How To Escape Mediocrity and Become The Writer You Always Wanted To Be.
By: Saaniya Aamir
Tags: Success, Writer, Writing Tips, Writing, Baking

What makes one a writer?

Is having good grammar enough? Or having English as the mother tongue?

Is being creative enough? Or is it enough to know where to put the apostrophe marks?

Maybe all that is enough to be a writer.

But what does it take to be a brilliant writer and escape mediocrity? The kind of content that finally gets you established and makes you FEEL like a writer.

Maybe it’s not all that difficult as it seems.

In order to become a better writer, Start by working on those Mini-Steps.

Writing is similar to baking.

It’s a combination of the right amount of measurements, mixing, heat and time.

You need to understand what makes your cake rise, and when to take it out of the oven.

You need to know how long to let it cool off before you take it out of the pan and start frosting.

Hence, just like carrying out these mini-steps in baking accurately, you can do the same for writing.

Here’s how you can do that.

Go Step By Step

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These 20 Steps below are the Measuring, Mixing, Baking and Frosting of Writing.

You need to work on each one of these, starting from the first.

1. Sentence Structure: A Catchy sentence is like the baking powder of writing. An essential ingredient.

2. Talk to your Readers: Make them feel like a part of it. Include questions, they could think about.

3. Use Flavored Words: Instead of using taste-less fillers, use specific words that enrich your content. That makes your readers want more and more.

4. Try using a different Writing Voice: You can learn to change your tone and see what works for you. For example, try something funny or even sarcastic. Or in baking terms, it’s the essence you use in your batter, vanilla or pineapple-Whatever strikes.

5. Reverse-Outlining: It is an extremely helpful tool to help you asses your primary draft. You can see if the story going in the right direction or if the progression makes sense. It’s the key to see if your cake is rising the way you want it to.

6. Include a Soundbite: A statement from an interview or a famous quotation that supports your content has the ability to somehow validate your content. It catches the reader’s interest and gets them thinking about it for a while. It’s just like adding chocolate chips in your cake, no one would be expecting it, but it leaves the taste lingering.

7. Practice using Metaphors: Metaphors help your readers imagine and even understand what you are trying to portray through your writing. They help form a mental picture. Every time you write, bake up fresh metaphors that are suitable for your story.

Work on your writing skills just like a baker works on perfecting the fondant. It takes quite a bit of practice, but in the end, you nail it.

Establish Strict Rules

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When was it when you first learned to bake? Were you inspired by a YouTube video, an Instagram post or a cooking channel? How did you learn?

Writing is similar to baking. But you just have to set up strict writing habits.

8. Take a break from the World: Wear your gloves, put on your apron, take time off from your cell and start working.

9. Set up a Routine: Make a calendar, set up a timetable. Stick to it. Write at that particular time each day.

10. Take responsibility for your writing: Make sure to write at least once every two days. It’s all up to you, the more you write, the more you progress.

11. Go step by step: Brainstorm, Plan, Write, Draft, Edit, Publish (Submit to a Publication).

12. Carry out your editing in multiple steps: It can be overwhelming to edit the entire content in one go. You might miss out a lot of things. It’s better to look at it again with a fresh mind.

Do Justice to Every Paragraph

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Give the readers what they want. Give them something they would actually like to read. Giving a chocolate cake to someone who hates chocolate, would never eat the cake.

If your writing is boring, no one would want to read it. Make sure what you write makes a difference to someone, influences someone, helps someone.

Here’s how you can do that in these 4 steps:

13. Understand your reader: Give them something, they will value. Make sure your writing is not filled with ‘fluffers’ but instead contains material of value that will actually help someone.

14. Persuade and Encourage: Instead of using monotonous, vague statements, use language that persuades, encourages and inspires readers to do what you are telling them to do. Make them believe in you.

15. Add Personal Experience: Adding personal experience helps those reading know, that you talk from experience. That it’s not something you copied off the internet. Add detail. Details that will help readers remember your article for a longer time.

16. Add quotes and citations: If not your own experience you can always support your content by adding someone else’s experience. Share tasty nuggets of information by digging deeper into your topic to reveal more specific tips.

People who came to your story are those who probably are in need of some advice, ideas or encouragement; give them exactly what they came for.

Learn From the Experts

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No one is born with the ingredients to the perfect cake or the consistency of its frosting. Similarly, no one is born with the exact type of content that they want to write about in their mind.

Over the years, you learn. You learn, with every story you read, every video you watch, every person you talk to. Here’s how you can do that.

17. Join Writer’s Group: Get your material reviewed by your peers or your seniors. Get their feedback. Learn from each other’s experience.

18. Explore Magazine Covers: Every popular magazine has an even popular headline. Learn to phrase your title in such a way that it catches the reader’s attention.

19. Focus on words: Every time you read, look at the words that grab your attention. What are those words? Keep them in mind the next time you write.

20. Learn to write a complicated topic in easy words: Not everyone has the knowledge that you do, or would automatically understand what you mean. Read children’s books and learn how they express and explain a complicated topic in simple words.

Believe In Your Self

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You are full of ideas, you love to write. What else do you want?

Get those brilliant ideas to writing now.

Everyone wants to read what you write about next.

So go, and Write NOW.