4 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer

Megan Travers, a VOX Reporter, wrote the following article sharing four solid tips to developing your skill as a writer.

 

Writing takes a lot of work. It’s fun and tough at the same time, and often it can be a little lonely. But whether you’re plowing through your latest work full steam ahead, you have a major case of writer’s block, or you’re just getting started in the wonderful world of writing, there’s never going to be a stage in your journey where you can’t improve. And that’s an amazing thing, because it means you never have to stagnate if you don’t want to. If you’re not sure where to start, though, here are a few tips to help you on your way!

1)    Read Advice. This is an obvious one, I know, but hear me through. Advice can be found all over, from character development to story setting, from obscure grammar rules to the three-act-structure. This is the sort of stuff that helps to increase your actual writing ability by providing you knowledge on the topic and giving you methods you might not have thought of before. Look up things you need help with and find different perspectives on things you’re comfortable with. Advice gives you the unique advantage of not having to go through everything. You can increase the quality of your writing based on the experiences of others, without having to find all of it out the hard way. It’s important to note, however, that you shouldn’t take all advice you see as law, even if it comes from a pretty respectable source. You can’t learn a cookie-cutter formula for art – not real art. Being able to actually create meaning isn’t something you can learn from advice posts, and you certainly won’t be unique by just copying someone else’s style.

2)    Know yourself. So, if you can’t learn your own artistic perspective from advice articles, where do you learn it? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple: you. Understanding what you want to write and how you want to write it can only really come from knowing yourself. Ask yourself some questions and explore your tastes. What makes you, well, you? What time periods are your favorites? What kinds of weather do you like best? What kind of architecture do you like? What are your favorite colors? What are your favorite themes in fiction? What are your favorite movies and books? Why do you like them so much? How would you describe a rainstorm? Is it different from what, for example, your best friend would say? This may sound a little weird, but it’s something you might find helpful in understanding your personal perspective. This contributes to a thing called “voice” that’s really important in becoming an individual artist. Now, this isn’t about creating a voice, because you already have a unique one! It’s just about rooting it out, understanding it, and making sure you’re being true and original.

Let me point out, though, that this isn’t to limit you. This doesn’t mean to find the weather you like best and the genre you like best and only write books like that. It’s to highlight your favorite things, what they say about you, how you view things, and why you view things the way you do.  This also seems to sharpen your inspiration and makes your understanding of your own preferences clearer, so you think up more ideas that are right along what you would actually want to keep up writing.

3)    Practice. Whether you have an idea you absolutely love or you can’t think of a single thing to write about, practice is important. Getting lost in the reflective, advice-reading state of mind can prevent you from actually put words on a page. And it’s likely that the longer you go without doing so, the less secure you’ll feel about your writing. But before you start working on your next piece, it’s important to note that the goal isn’t that you start rapidly composing timeless classics (though that’s all right if it’s your eventual objective 😉 ), but rather that you simply begin. Focus on being able to say what you want to say in the way you want to say it, on being able to bring a reader’s attention to something in particular and on developing your own voice. It’s like painting – when you get new art supplies, sometimes it’s best to just mess around with the materials and try out techniques and see how it naturally works and flows. Don’t worry about ending with a polished piece – the things you learn from writing imperfect prose will help you to write better later on. Again, using the art comparison, you don’t sit down and immediately paint a masterpiece! Artists try out individual things, like practicing hands over and over, and maybe even trying them in different styles. They may have sketchbooks full of messy sketch drawings (where you draw loosely and quickly to get the basic shapes of something) – things that helped them learn their subjects, but were never intended to be the next gallery piece they displayed. Try to view your writing like art – maybe even start your own “sketchbook” of quick pieces of writing based on prompts or objects you try to describe! Don’t worry about whether the words you’re putting down sound good or not – trust me, sketches can look horrific too, but they’re necessary and completely worthwhile! If, in time, you need help writing full novels, look into some programs like NaNoWriMo – which actually just wrapped up. (If you missed it this time, that’s okay. They have a bunch of summer programs too, and you can always do it on your own!) If you have access to or can form a group, try writing a story with them, having people taking turns with their own characters in a story. Don’t worry about it being the next bestseller – just have fun, experiment and get words down! It’s great for practice and loosens you up about writing. In the end, just be patient with yourself – even though you want to be writing right now, it’s good to take a step back, relax, and focus on those “sketches”.

4)    Get Feedback. It’s really pretty crucial not to stay in your own writing bubble. It’s good to go out on a limb and share your writing with others. Showing people your work can be scary sometimes, but you might find yourself ridiculously surprised by the outcome. Getting feedback is necessary to fix problem areas, get more confident in yourself and get more comfortable with exchanging creative material. Start with people you’re comfortable with, like a family member or close friend. Be aware, though, that these people – because they care about you so much – will probably have softer opinions. And that’s okay – but make sure you eventually work your way up to harder critiques. It might be tough, but you won’t improve otherwise! If you have a writing group, whether casual or official, that can be a great resource – a kind of mix of that caring critique and more objective one. So as to not overwhelm them or yourself, sharing single scenes instead of a whole book might be good for those first few sessions. You’ll get the work back quickly, and the critique will be limited to just that one excerpt instead of having to take criticism on your entire work at once. Like was mentioned in the bit about advice, though, remember that these critiques are mostly just opinions. Although they’re often valid and it’s good to pay attention to what people say, don’t take a correction as law if you really don’t think it’s a good idea. And whether you like what they say or don’t, make sure you don’t insult them by replying rudely or coldly after they’ve spent time going over your work. Don’t get discouraged if and when you get those negative responses. Not everyone will like what you write, and if you make mistakes, that’s just part of anything in life! It doesn’t mean you’re down for the count, it just means you have something to work on.

I hope you found this helpful! Let me know what projects you’re working on and how your writing is going! If you have any questions about writing, whether it’s about technical stuff or creative things like writer’s block, description, etc., let us know here: https://modgthewritersquill.wordpress.com/you-ask-quill-answers/

Good luck and happy writing!