Ted Chiang doesn't publish writing-advice essays or run an ongoing workshop the way some authors do, but he's talked at length in interviews about how he thinks through a story, and he's spent time teaching newer writers directly. The advice that comes through is consistent: know what you're doing before you do it.

The Direct Answer
Ted Chiang's advice for writers centers on knowing your idea completely before you start drafting. In interviews, he's described working out a story's premise and its ending first, and checking whether the idea has already been done, before spending real time on prose.
He's also talked about the value of patience: letting a story sit for as long as it takes to understand it, rather than forcing a draft to meet a deadline.

Understand the Idea Before You Write a Word of Prose

For Chiang, a story starts as a question, something like what it would mean to perceive time differently, or what identity means if memory became perfectly reliable. He works out the implications of that question before he writes any scenes. The advice that follows from his own practice is straightforward: if you can't say what your story is actually about, you're probably not ready to draft it yet.

This runs against a common piece of writing advice, which is to just start and figure it out as you go. That approach works for plenty of writers. It isn't Chiang's, and his career suggests the alternative is worth taking seriously, at least for idea-driven fiction like his.

Read Enough to Know What's Already Been Done

Chiang attended a Clarion-style workshop early in his career and has since taught at Clarion West in Seattle, where he lives, working directly with newer science fiction and fantasy writers. Workshops like this push writers to read widely inside their genre, partly so they don't spend months developing an idea that's already a well-worn trope.

For newer writers, the practical version of this advice isn't about reading everything ever published. It's about reading enough of your specific corner of the genre that you can tell the difference between an idea that feels fresh to you and one that's actually fresh.

Trust Patience Over Deadlines

The clearest thread through everything Chiang has said about his process is that he doesn't force a story before it's ready. He's set premises aside for years when he didn't yet understand them well enough to write them. That pace isn't realistic for most working writers, especially anyone writing under contract, but the underlying instinct, that an unfinished understanding produces an unfinished story, holds regardless of how fast you write.

You can read more about how that patience plays out day to day in the full Ted Chiang writing routine.

What You Can Steal