Writing Tips to Accelerate Your Development: Expert Advice

Looking for expert writing tips to accelerate your development?

Jo-Anne Richards and Richard Beynon explore proven strategies that they wish they’d known earlier in their journeys in this webinar. Drawing from their decades of professional writing and teaching experience, they share practical wisdom on everything from the transformative power of rewriting to building creative momentum that lasts. Writers from around the globe – spanning Cape Town to Chicago to the Cotswolds – contributed questions and insights that enriched this collaborative session. Watch the full discussion below, then read on for the key writing advice that could accelerate your own author development.

Watch the webinar replay for expert advice and writing tips to accelerate your development

How to Rewrite Your First Draft: The Complete Transformation Method

One of the most valuable writing tips for developing authors is this: don’t revise your first draft – rewrite it completely.

Jo-Anne explained why this approach, though it sounds daunting, actually accelerates development more than tinkering with your original draft. “For the most part, your first draft is a kind of pouring out of ideas, and it’s not necessarily structured in the best possible way,” she noted. “If you just revise, the danger is that you’re moving the deck chairs around – shifting words, changing sentences, removing adjectives—while the fundamental structure remains flawed.”

Her rewriting process? She opens a blank document and pushes her first draft down to the bottom of the page, treating it as reference material rather than something to be edited line by line. “I had a big marker for ‘first draft,’ and then I would just go down, find bits, come up. I certainly rewrote it completely, but I drew pieces of the first draft out.”

The approach gained compelling support from an anecdote about Daisy Johnson, the youngest writer ever shortlisted for the Booker Prize. According to Richard, Johnson takes this principle to the extreme: “She writes the first draft, and then she puts it aside and doesn’t ever look at it again. She writes a second draft – which is to say, it’s not a second draft, it’s a new first draft. Writing her first draft gets things straight in her head.”

Building Writing Momentum: Small Sessions, Big Results

Richard shared one of his greatest regrets: the years he spent as a professional writer without maintaining his own creative projects. “What I wished I’d known was that if I had generated a little momentum – if I had managed to find an hour a day or half an hour a day, or two hours twice a week, and if I had established that as a habit – I would have generated the kind of momentum that would have given me many more years of writing my own stuff.”

His practical writing advice for overcoming inertia? Start impossibly small. “Write a line of dialogue, and then an answering line from somebody in the room with that first person, and make it a disagreement between the two of them. Let that conversation ball roll between them. I promise you, it’s not difficult because you can borrow from life, any day of your life.”

From there, the momentum builds naturally. Ask yourself where this is happening, write a line describing the setting, imagine what happened immediately before, and consider what comes next. “By now, you’re well on your way to having a story,” Richard explained. “And it’s at this point you should start thinking about the story. Don’t write the story – think about it.”

Want to maintain your writing momentum? Sign up for Monday Motivation emails from Richard to keep your creative practice consistent.

How to Overcome Your Inner Critic When Writing

One participant’s question resonated with many developing writers: “I have always had an overactive imagination. My struggle is fixating on making it perfect. I’m far too critical of my own work sometimes. What are some ways to combat your inner critic?”

Richard’s first tactic: temporal separation. “Write without paying attention to the critic if you possibly can, and promise yourself that you will give your inner critic her time in the sun when you’ve finished. Then set your story aside for a few weeks – a good few weeks – before you get back to it. When you go back to a story that you’ve written a little bit in the past, natural disengagement will take place, and the inner critic won’t be as active.”

The rewards of this patience? “You will find that inner critic will say things like, ‘Oh gosh, this is better than I thought,’ or ‘This dialogue is very nice,’ or ‘Gosh, did I write that?’ But you’ve got to give it a chance to settle and marinate.”

Jo-Anne added a crucial insight about developing your writing skills: “You have to change heads when you’re writing and when you’re rewriting. Not just a hat, but a head. You need a loving head when you’re writing, but you need the head of a kind stranger when you are revising – not an enemy, a kind stranger.”

Her practical advice? “I almost see them as gargoyles and gremlins – those parts of oneself or the imagined response of other people. I sometimes think, ‘Oh my god, imagine so-and-so reading this work,’ and you have to hit them in the face and knock them off your shoulders.”

Planning Your Story Structure: Save Time on Drafts

Richard, drawing on his background in film and television where “everything is planned,” emphasised that time invested in thinking about story structure pays exponential dividends. “Spend time on thinking about your story – it’s really about thinking about the structure of your story as much as anything else. If you get it right, then I think this is the perfect way of writing a story, and you will end up with a story that doesn’t need seven drafts.”

This writing technique resonated with one participant who described herself as an “OCD plotter” who creates “a very thorough outline based on the three-act structure.” Richard validated this approach as sound writing advice: “My inclination is still to do exactly what you describe yourself doing.”

However, he acknowledged the trade-off: “The problem is you’ve got to get it right. And you do come up with wonderful ideas while you’re writing, and you realise if I incorporate these ideas, I’m going to throw out the plan going forward completely.”

Jo-Anne offered the counterpoint from her more exploratory writing process: “I like working the way I work because I find that I get ideas along the way, and it helps me develop.” The key insight? Both approaches work – the crucial element is finding which suits your creative process.

Ready to develop your writing skills systematically? Join our creative writing course designed to give you all the techniques you need.

Questions from the community

Present Tense vs Past Tense: Which Should You Choose?

When asked about tense choice – a common question for developing writers – Richard noted the current literary climate: “We seem to be going through a phase in which people are preferring present tense.” However, both instructors expressed reservations about the trend.

“Josie and I both feel that present tense presents some technical problems that are difficult to handle,” Richard explained. “We don’t think that it really makes your story any more immediate than the past tense.”

One participant offered practical writing advice: “I would recommend writers check out the Top 100 Amazon books in their genre and then decide whether to go past or present tense and first or third person POV. I like to stay abreast of the market trends in my own genre.”

Jo-Anne and Richard agreed this was sound advice, noting that certain genres embrace present tense more readily than others. This market-aware approach to developing your writing craft can help ensure your work meets reader expectations.

Writing About Ordinary Life: Why Readers Love It

A recurring concern from participants was whether their stories – particularly memoirs of “ordinary” lives – would bore readers. Jo-Anne and Richard addressed this writing worry decisively.

“You don’t have to worry about that boredom thing,” Jo-Anne reassured. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s people chasing poachers or getting chased by lions, or whether it’s a small, focused story on somebody who’s in love for the very first time and isn’t sure whether the object of her love will love her back. As long as we identify and can enter into the feelings of those characters, we will be interested and drawn along.”

Richard supported this with a powerful example: Karl Ove Knausgård’s seven-volume “My Struggle”, which chronicles the most mundane events in extraordinary detail. “He writes about a children’s party when nothing goes wrong, actually, for like 20 pages. And I have to tell you that it is fascinating. It’s mysteriously fascinating. We are interested in the details of other people’s lives, and there’s no getting away from that.”

How to Write Memoir: Handling Confidentiality and Ethics

One participant raised a question many memoir writers face: “I am writing a memoir about my journey as an HIV activist. I have been writing it for the last eight years, but I have so much hesitation about the confidentiality aspect.”

Richard offered several approaches: “You can ask them whether they mind. You can give them the right to say no. You can disguise them, but the disguises have to be good – they can’t just be a simple name change if you retain identifying details.”

He acknowledged the complexity of developing memoir writing while protecting privacy: “You have to be very careful about identifying people in a book that does revolve around intimate personal details. We know people who’ve written books like this who have put it away and intend to wait until at least one person has died before they think of publishing it.”

Why Writers Need Professional Feedback (Not Just Friends)

When one participant asked what there would to rewrite if friends found their work perfect, the writing advice was gentle but direct. “I think you should also sometimes think of asking people to read it who are not your friends,” Richard suggested. “Your friends are obliged to like your work.”

One participant noted wryly, “My husband isn’t kind about my short stories. He is very straight forward and critical” – prompting another to respond with approval. The consensus: while loving support matters, developmental feedback requires objectivity.

Professional assessment can accelerate your development as a writer by identifying blind spots that friends and family might miss. Consider our  mentoring programmes or manuscript assessment services to get honest, constructive feedback.

Your Writing Journey Continues

Whether you’re working on your first tentative pages or your seventh novel, remember that every established writer once stood exactly where you are now. These writing tips aren’t about skipping the work – they’re about working smarter. Rewrite rather than revise. Build momentum through small, consistent sessions. Separate your creative and critical selves. Think deeply about structure before you write.

And above all, join a community of writers who understand both the struggle and the profound satisfaction of the craft.

Join Our Writing Community

Participants expressed warm appreciation for the session, with one commenting: “Thank you for all of your resources Josie and Richard. You are incredibly generous and an inspiration.” Another simply stated: “Mondays define my week!” – referring to Richard’s weekly Monday Motivation emails.

Perhaps most telling was the comment from a past mentoring participant: “The mentoring course is amazing. Lifted me out of the deepest trough and I have the bare bones of a memoir, amazingly!”

Looking ahead to 2026, we’re thrilled to announce:

• 12 free monthly webinars throughout the year
• Weekly Monday Motivation emails from Richard
• Monthly newsletter with writing tips from Jo-Anne
• Creative writing courses with personalised feedback
• Join our Mentoring programme  for manuscript development
• Writing retreats in Barrydale, Stow-on-the-Wold, and Venice

Ready to accelerate your writing development? Sign up for our next webinar or test the waters with our free Power of Writing Course. If you’re not sure exactly what’s right for you, please ​email Trish to discuss your writing project and how we can best help you achieve your goals.