Polish & share · Tip 78 of 82 · 4 min read
Spelling Tricks for Busy Writers
Keep your ideas flowing first, then use clever tricks to fix tricky spellings later.
Here's a secret: lots of brilliant writers find spelling hard. Spelling and storytelling are two different skills. You can be amazing at one while you're still learning the other.
Write first, spell later
When an idea is zooming through your head, don't stop to worry about spelling. Write the word the best way you can, draw a little line under it, and keep going. You can check it when the story is finished.
The dragon landed on the roof with a tremendus thud. Chimneys toppled. Somewhere, a baby started to cry.
The writer wasn't sure about tremendous, so they underlined it and carried on. The scene stayed exciting, and the spelling got fixed later.
Tricks for tricky words
- Silly sentences: because is Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants.
- Words inside words: there's a rat in separate, and you hear with your ear.
- Say it funny: say Wed-nes-day and Feb-ru-ary the way they're spelled, just in your head.
- Look, cover, write, check: look at the word, cover it, write it from memory, then check.
Make a word bank
Keep a list at the back of your notebook of words you often get stuck on. Every writer has a few. Once a word is in your bank, you'll never have to hunt for it again.