Five Things Wimbledon Can Teach You About Writing by Nola Passmore

Did you spend more time watching Wimbledon in the last two weeks than working on your manuscript? If you’re feeling guilty, fret no more. All that ‘tele-tennis’ can actually help with your writing. Here’s how.

Practice Makes (Almost) Perfect

Top players like Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams make the shots look easy. Powerful serves, effortless backhands, precision volleys. If only I had their talent! However, they didn’t master those winning strokes overnight. They practised each one thousands of times before stepping out on court. Now imagine doing all of it in a wheelchair as well. That's exactly what Australian Dylan Alcott did to win this year's inaugural quad wheelchair singles and doubles. You can read more about Dylan's incredible achievements here. If we applied the same discipline to our writing, readers would marvel at our powerful metaphors, effortless dialogue and precision plotting. It’s especially important to practise in your weaker areas. Study the craft, do writing exercises, seek feedback and practise, practise, practise until your words sizzle on the page.  For more detail on the benefits of practice, click here.

The Follow-Through is Key

In tennis, you don’t stop your swing as soon as the racquet makes contact with the ball. You have to follow through to add power and keep the momentum going. ‘Following through’ is just as important in writing. Have you heard or read some great writing tips? Then apply them to your writing in order to cement your learning. Did you promise yourself you’d write more this week? Month? Year? Then do what it takes to fulfil that promise. For more tips on following through, please see a longer post here.

Bad On-Court (Online) Behaviour Comes Back to Bite

 

There are a lot of wonderful players who show sportsmanship on and off the court—Evonne Cawley, Roger Federer, Ash Barty and Pat Rafter to name a few. However, we’ve also seen the dummy spits. Not only does bad behaviour alienate the player from the public, but it can also result in fines and loss of endorsements. Writers can also lose the good will of the writing fraternity through uncharitable behaviour (e.g. ranting about publishers who’ve rejected their work; debating with readers who’ve given unfavourable reviews; joining online writing communities purely to market their own books without giving back). In the writing world as in other spheres, we’d be wise to ‘do unto others as we’d have them do unto us’.

No Adaptability, No Grand Slam

In order to win a calendar year Grand Slam in tennis, you have to win Wimbledon, the Australian Open, the French Open, and the United States Open in the same year. In adult singles, this feat has only been won accomplished by two men (Don Budge and Rod Laver) and three women (Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court and Steffi Graf). One reason it’s so difficult is that the tournaments are played on different surfaces: grass for Wimbledon, clay for the French Open, and hard courts for the Australian and US Opens. (Though some surfaces have changed over the years). If players can’t adapt to different surfaces, they won’t win all four events. While you don’t have to ‘win’ at all types of writing, you can increase your opportunities by learning to write across various styles and genres. Different types of writing can cross-pollinate. Writing poetry can help you develop fresh imagery in your fiction; writing fiction can help you add more creativity to your nonfiction pieces. Why not experiment with those different surfaces? You might be surprised at the results.

It’s Not All Strawberries and Cream 

Did you know that 28 000 kg of strawberries and 10 000 litres of cream are used during Wimbledon? Well, some of that cream probably goes on the scones, but that still leaves a lot of strawberries and cream to tempt the taste buds. Tennis isn’t just about those delectable moments. It takes a lot of hard work and persistence to succeed. The same is true of writing. We’d all like to be the person who wrote their debut novel in a few weeks and then sat back as it climbed the bestseller lists. However, ‘overnight’ success occurs when writers buckle down and write through the hard times as well as the good. Some days, writing is pure joy. Other days, you want to kill your protagonist for creating so many plot problems for you. Hang in there and it won’t be long before the strawberries and cream are tantalising your writerly taste buds again.

(N.B. Blog Photos from Pixabay and Stencil, free creative commons use; Author photo by Wayne Logan. An earlier version of this post appeared on The Write Flourish writing tips blog.)

Author Bio

Nola Passmore (aka Nola Lorraine) has had more than 140 short pieces published including short fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, devotions, magazine articles and academic articles. Her debut novel Scattered, an inspirational historical novel, is being published by Breath of Fresh Air Press in 2020. She and her husband Tim run their own editing business called The Write Flourish. When not writing herself, she loves to nag (oops ... encourage) other to write. One day, she should read through all of her blog posts and take her own advice 😄

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