How do you make yourself a better writer?

[justiceischeap]

I've always enjoyed writing but I want to improve my skills. Any suggestions?

[BigMcLargehuge]

1. like any skill, the more you do it, the better you get

also - read voraciously.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. I have to second BigMcLargeHuge - practice, and read voraciously

Andit helps sometimes to read with the eye of the writer - not so much for story, but be cognizant of HOW the story is being told; HOW the sentences are structured; HOW words are used.

And practice, practice, practice.

AND - this is also extremely important - give yourself permission to write pure shit. Pure unadulterated drivelish crap. Be free to write the most godawful, nonsensical, harlequin-level, Dixon Hill-ish putrid-heron-smells-better life-whithering i-have-to-poke-my-eyes-out-this-is-so-grotesquely-obscene garbage.

Until you give yourself that freedom, you won't improve.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

3. This works for me

I grew up reading, and now I read, usually a book - fiction or non-fiction - every couple of days. I read everything - biographies, history, art history, science, and, of course, People magazine. It's always been my belief that that's how I ended up in the writing business. It just felt like home.

One of my literary heroes, Walker Percy, also became a friend of mine, before I even considered writing a novel. He told me once that when he couldn't write, he read. When he couldn't read, he went for a walk. When he couldn't walk anywhere, he sat down and wrote. Of course, it's more complicated than that, but his advice serves me well to this day, and I've yet to miss a deadline - although there was that one unfortunate incident where I couldn't get out of bed and my agent and editor had to assure me that I would not die if I began to work on the editing of that particular novel.

If you want to be a better writer, read things that are far different from anything you would ever write. Read authors whose names are hard for you to pronounce, people from places you've never heard of or will never visit. Read stuff that makes you go back and read that paragraph again, to make sure you got it. Read works that force you to get up and cross the room and look up that word you've never before seen.

Read books that come to you long after you've finished with them, books that creep into your mind at the oddest times, and you aren't quite certain that you didn't really know those people, weren't really at that place, didn't really endure that loss.

And, when all is said and done, write letters. Write to your loved ones and tell them what you're doing, what's on your mind, what you hope, what you dream, what you fear. Epistolary exercises are sometimes the most liberating, because you're writing to a reader - that's part of the trick - but you know this reader, unlike people who are writing to strangers, so you can tell this person things you might not tell someone you didn't know.

Of course, you don't have to mail those letters. Later, they make a fine journal. Or maybe, a year later, you'll rush to burn what you find because you'll have honed your skills to such a point that they almost embarrass you.

Ultimately, of course, you are the only person who will know if you think you're a good writer, if you've improved, and, honestly, that's all that matters.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

15. Wow! Walker Percy? Damn, boy. You were in some seriously good company!

The Moviegoer & Second Coming are a couple of my favorite books.

:toast:

[justiceischeap]

4. Thank you all

I too have always been a voracious reader. I was taught to read by a great grandparent by reading the bible (hence my dislike for religion to this day). Anyway, after I got back from NOLA, I read 8 books in a month, I found it easier to live in a fantasy world than deal with the reality of what I saw. So I'm taking a break from reading. Though I did find Patricia Cornwell a good distraction. Okay, so now I'm rambling (which doesn't make for good writing).

Anyway, thanks again for all the advice, I will remember it all as I "practice."

[petgoat]

8. My impression from this post is that there's stuff from NOLA

going on in your mind.

Not knowing you, I can't dispute or validate your assertion that
rambling doesn't make good writing. I think Stephen King's "On
Writing" asserts something to the effect that writing is semi-magical
telepathic communication from one mind to another, and thus the act
should be undertaken only with extreme respect and care. I found
that a provocative idea that gave me the license to think more and
write less--which may or may not be productive in the long run because
my usual practice was to think on paper. I could argue also for my
earlier practice of simply scribbling, and extracting from 10,000
words of gibberish a few hundred words that actually connect to some
sort of coherent work.

As to the OP question, in what way do you want improve your skills?

Do you want to write snappier, or more melodiously, or with livelier
diction, more active verbs, reduce ambiguity, more engagingly,
improve dialog, jazz up images?

[EmmaP]

5. Workshop

I joined a local Writers' Workshop and it has been wonderful. The constructive criticism and praise have helped me immensely. I look back at the essays I wrote when I first joined the workshop and what I'm writing now ... there's a huge difference.

[sybylla]

6. I agree with all that's been said so far

and would add that there's nothing like having a good, honest and skilled critic at hand.

I became part of a 4-person monthly writing group last December and have been amazed by how much the other three people have helped me improve. We all have writing ambitions and we're as comfortable pointing out the good and bad as we are in accepting that criticism. The biggest benefit is that they show me where I'm lacking and challenge me to find a better way. In the ten months since it started, I've gone from feeling like a dreadful novice to actually having hope I will be published in the near future.

So my advice if you want to see more noticable improvement more quickly is to find someone - it doesn't have to be a group but personally I appreciate the different perspectives - who you can trust to be fair and honest with your creative product and provide you with reasoned criticism that will help you understand your own skills.

[bain_sidhe]

7. As Lawrence Watt-Evans once said

The first million words are just practice. ;-)

Just write, yes, but also do some writing with "specific intent" - where you want to accomplish a specific thing - a bit of description, a characterization or something like that. Play with viewpoints. Tell a story from the first person P.O.V. Tell a story from a third person P.O.V. where you don't know any of the character's names (for example, somebody standing at a window watching what's happening inside). Tell a story without any action. Tell a story with nothing BUT action. Tell a story completely in dialogue, or monologue. It doesn't matter if it's any good, or even if it's a complete story - the point is to *think* about the parts of a story and how they add to a story. It doesn't have to be a long piece, just enough to accomplish whatever you intended to do, and to get a sense for how that element *fits* in your writing.

My thoughts, anyway.

[Orrex]

9. Two tips

Tip One: Find critics who are sincerely willing to critique
Nothing (and I mean nothing) is more destructive to a fledgling writer's growth than good-intentioned but vapidly positive criticism. Such feedback can be uplifting, but if it only offers praise without actual suggestions for improvement, then it does little but stoke the writer's ego.

Tip Two: Don't take criticism personally
Since writing can involve such a deep investment of oneself, it can sting a little when someone really offers a strong critique. However, unless you're dealing with a total jerk, that doesn't mean that the critic thinks you're a bad writer (and certainly not a bad person!), but it does mean that there are probably aspects of your writing that could use additional work.

[Robert Cooper]

10. Coming in late...recognize that you define your audience...

...with the things you say, the way you say it.

Your content and style will appeal to a segment of the population, but not others. This is due to the variety of tastes and opinions and the motives for listening to a point of view. Few people will be attracted to an opinion that opposes their cherished beliefs, while they will be drawn to those of like mind. Some people prefer short and to-the-point statements while others prefer a more descriptive passage.

When you accept that you can't please everyone all the time (and if you can, pass on the secret to the rest of us), you begin to see that those you please tend to be those who recognize your views as their own.

It tends to take the intimidation out of writing when you see that you'll be preaching to the choir. It also helps to take the sting out of disagreement (obviously some will prefer you represent -their- views rather than your own).

I've been writing for 35 years, and my best material always feels like its channeled through me, as if I were nothing more than a typewriter. There are times when I have to read it again to absorb all that I communicated. When you write as you would talk, it will feel most natural and you'll find it easier to 'hear' the words in your head, much like dictation. If it doesn't sound right spoken, chances are it won't work in writing either.

Hope that helps.

(edit: 35 years...my how the time flies)

[petgoat]

11. I don't think it takes anything from your metaphor to suggest

that after you've drafted a sermon for your choir, it might be well
to go over it again with the idea of luring in people from the
street too (without losing the choir).

Reading out loud is important.

For my next book I want to try a new method: I will print out and edit
the first draft, but instead of entering my changes using the word processor,
I'm going to read it into one of those voice-to-text conversion programs.
Back in the old days the retyping of an edited manuscript introduced
another stage of editing, and gave you another beginning-to-end run instead
of the fragment-to-fragment run you get in entering editorial changes.

[politicat]

12. My practice is fanfic.

Then I can concentrate on the plotting or the dialogue or whatever and not worry about building characters or settings.

Silly, I know, but it works for me.

[petgoat]

13. I don't think that's silly at all.

You can generate characters from anything that arouses a reaction in you: characters
in fiction, movies, TV, games, pictures from magazine ads, tarot cards, horoscope books,
numerological books, the Jungian types, impressions from newspaper stories.

Sam Shepard's play La Turista had major characters named after brands of
cigarettes (Kent and Salem). I sometimes name characters Dodge or Ford or Renault
(or DeSoto) to start.

You can generate characters by inversion: If your model is a weak person who discovers
her strength, write about a strong person who discovers her weakness.

History is full of characters to steal. Marcus Aurelius meets Tecumseh in a bowling alley
in Phuket. Great stories to steal, too.

Nothing is silly when you're starting. It's whatever it takes to fill the pages.

[leftofthedial]

14. write

write every day, as though it was a job

find someone you trust and respect (not your family or personal friends) to read what you write and to help you make it better. a group of other writers is often good for this.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

16. You write.

And write, and write, and write, and did I mention write?

;) :P

WIMR

[Angry Girl]

17. The first millions words you write are just practice

to paraphrase a screenwriter whose name I don't remember right now.

- Reading, of course, is highly encouraged.

- Honest feedback from people whose writing criticism you respect (a toughie - sometimes a class or workshop can help with this aspect)

- And -- OK, someone is bound to attack this one because, yes, rules are meant to be broken -- make sure you learn about STRUCTURE, particularly your basic three-act structure.

I'm a big one on structure now. I wasn't always and used to flounder a lot after strong starts but now I never get "writer's block" because I always know where I'm going. Granted, a lot of thinking and time go into my prep work -- where I write an outline of all the scenes I'll be writing, from beginning to end -- but the writing process is pretty straightforward when you can follow a road map of your story.