Improving myself as a writer

Discussion in 'General Writing' started by Nervous1st, Mar 4, 2009.

  1. bananafish

    bananafish Member

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    You have to read a lot, I mean a LOT, to learn how to write. You also have to write to learn how to write. Write a lot. Write hard. Write when you hate it and want to rip it to shreds. It's a major commitment. It's not always "fun" and I don't always want to sit down and slog through but it is always, always, always fulfilling. Even on the bad days. To me writing isn't like, "Oh, I want to write," it's like "Oh I HAVE to write like I have to breathe even when it hurts and it's terrible." But yeah it's definitely something you have to take very seriously and you have to be willing to diligently write crap for years before you crank out anything semi-good.

    You say you want to wait to write until you're good enough to start. Well, I think you're just prolonging being a bad writer. The only way to start is to dive in and be horrible. Literally nobody on earth starts writing and is a good writer. It takes so much time.

    By the way, the only true "bad" writer is the one who never tries. :)


    "I hate writing. I love having written." --Dorothy Parker
     
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  2. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    But if you don't write, then how will you ever know if you're good enough to start?
     
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  3. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I'm confused. Are you asking if being an avid reader will magically make you a good writer?
     
  4. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    On the alternate side of the argument - I learned to write by reading. I've never taken a writing course, never finished a writing book without skimming and eye-rolling and groaning, etc. I've learned a lot from the editors I've worked with, but I learned to write well enough to get editors just by reading.

    But it took me about thirty years. I've probably learned as much in the eight or so years since I started writing as I learned in the thirty-something years before I started writing.

    So I would say, yes, it's possible to learn to write reasonably well just by reading, but it takes a long time. And I don't think it's possible to learn to write really well just by reading.
     
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  5. GB reader

    GB reader Contributor Contributor

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    Reading is good.
    Active reading (reading as a writer/editor) is much better, but you have to write yourself. And you have to start from a very basic level.

    I am not typical for this forum, I am trying to learn to write after reading huge amounts of books for more than 55 years.

    I learned more about writing when I wrote my very first flash fiction than i did those 55 years of reading. I could have read 4-5 books in the same time (~20h) it took to write that basic "Play With Words" flash I wrote.
    But reading those books would have learned me nothing about writing.

    I still have problems reading active, I very easily fall back in old habits of just throwing myself into the story without attention to how it's done.
     
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  6. raine_d

    raine_d Active Member

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    You say you plan to start writing as soon as you think you are good enough, but the only way to know that is to write, to try and try again and see what you can come up with. How else will you be able to judge?

    Lots of reading is good, and one of the key tools to help you improve, but to improve you have to have something to improve from - actually sitting down, writing YOUR words and stories and seeing what they are and how they can be improved is unavoidable, because otherwise you have nothing to measure against all that reading.
     
  7. Rohan89

    Rohan89 Member

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    In my (limited) experience, you need both reading and writing. If you totally stop doing one, the other isn't going to come to your rescue.

    Need to be fully invested in reading a lot and writing a lot
     
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  8. LazyBear

    LazyBear Banned

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    If you read things in order to apply critique then you can know when your story lacks something based on your own preferences. I was able to construct heuristic frameworks for plot analysis by studying other works. Solving the problems when you fail the heuristics comes from practice with actual writing.
     
  9. JLT

    JLT Contributor Contributor

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    The main advantage of reading is that you find out how others do it, and what seems to work and what doesn't seem to work. No need to re-invent the wheel. The more "conscious" you are in your reading, in the sense that it's not just a passive endeavor, the more the things that work will filter into your own writing.

    Look at it this way: after a football game, the players watch a lot of film. (Okay, it's not film anymore, but work with me here.) They review the game, and look for ways they could have altered its flow. They see themselves doing things that have to be remedied in order to reach the next level of performance. They see what other players are doing, and figure out why those players are effective. If a play turns out badly, the coach has to figure out why it failed, and what the team needs to do to make the play successful the next time it's run. All this is a necessary part of their work. But never think that you can become the next Tom Brady simply by watching a lot of film. You've got to get out on the field and play the fricking game.
     
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  10. KevinMcCormack

    KevinMcCormack Senior Member

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    Another practical benefit of reading is that it helps shape the writing into a niche you can call your own, if the purpose is to ultimately sell it.

    In three ways...

    Firstly, there's avoiding unintentional duplication. I have heard a few agents and editors say that even a well written story will sit in the slush pile if it's too close to some other famous plot or character. ("Why isn't anybody buying my detective novel about a retired Belgian policeman solving crimes as a private investigator in interwar London? What? Who's Abithe Krusty?")

    Secondly, it's good to have read a genre's recent work, if for no other reason than it helps narrow down your options for representation. I'm writing X, and these are what's getting published, who's their agent, editor, publisher? Those are your potential business partners; it helps to be current in their business.

    Lastly, there's value in absorbing your target genre in order to identify the bones and sinews that compose successful bodies of work. Why are some of them rubbish, but others become bestsellers? Oftimes, reading a cross section clears up the mystery. Paradoxically, reading others' work give you more building blocks to select among, and ultimately assemble into something uniquely yours.
     
  11. Rosacrvx

    Rosacrvx Contributor Contributor

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    Oh, that was so perfectly said!!!

    I'm stealing it!
     
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  12. Jaybee

    Jaybee New Member

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    I agree with other people on this subject. Find a genre that you enjoy and read as much as you can. By studying work by other good authors, you will eventually pick up many tips on how to create characters, scenes and atmosphere. It is unfortunately a long learning process becoming a writer. I've been at it for 7 years and carry on climbing the ladder...........to success...........I hope!
     
  13. D.Clarke

    D.Clarke Active Member

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    Reading works. Also, copywork exercises. That worked for me personally.
     
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  14. K McIntyre

    K McIntyre Active Member

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    But also read out of your favorite genre as much as you can. Or at least try. It helps broaden your knowledge base, as well as your understanding of different styles. I am not a big reader of nonfiction, but I force myself to read it every now and then for those reasons.
     
  15. Mrs.Smith

    Mrs.Smith Member

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    As to reading, yes, you can learn a lot. But I've read hundreds of sci-fi novels and I can't write sci-fi. Although I enjoy reading it, describing the inner workings of spacecraft or imagining alien life-forms is beyond me and no amount of reading is going to change that. Although I like reading it, it isn't what I enjoy writing.

    I used to hate writing "news" type articles. When I first started my magazine, I had to write an article on dredging a nearby waterway. Ugh. Just shoot me in the head now. But I did it. It wasn't my best work because I wasn't passionate about the subject, but I got the 5 Ws and H on paper and it got the job done. But the flip side of that an article I did last year on oyster farming. Another potentially dry subject, but I love learning new things and I had a blast learning about oyster farming - so I put that sense of fun in the article and I still get emails from people wanting copies of it. The difference? Passion. If you don't have a passion for what you're writing about, it's not gonna be your best work.

    I'll also add that I've learned a LOT from editing the writing of others. I had a guy who wrote a column for me that averaged about 700 words. The first thing I did was highlight all the places he used "the." I cut or rephrased 125 instances of "the." Now I'm hyper-aware of overusing that word.
    I have a guy now who mixes metaphors constantly. If it were on purpose, it would be humorous, but it isn't. I have to straighten out his metaphors without losing his "voice" and it's challenging at times. But it's helped me develop a better understanding of the different ways people communicate. Now when I read a novel and two characters use the same unusual expression, I notice it, and I'm careful not to do that in my own writing. If I have a character whose pet expression is "Holy Batshit!" They're the only character who says that.
    It's helped in more technical ways too. I've always struggled with commas. So has mixed-metaphor guy, which forced me to pull out my AP Stylebook and figure out how to fix it. I knew it was wrong, but why it was wrong eluded me. Turns out, AP says scrap the rules you learned in English 101 and only use a comma if it adds clarity to a sentence, such as in separating complex series. Who knew? If I hadn't had to figure it out to edit someone else's writing, I'd probably still be doing it wrong.

    Pull a chapter from a novel and read over it with an eye toward making the writing better, or offer to line-edit someone else's work. You'd be surprised at what you catch and/or could make better, and what you'll learn in the process.
    That said, there's a flip side to that. I have to force myself to turn off that internal editor when reading for pleasure. If I can make it through an entire novel without mentally correcting it, I'll buy everything that author has written!
     
  16. Kenosha Kid

    Kenosha Kid Active Member

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    That's an interesting thought. I've heard of it being done by some big names too. Hunter S Thompson alleged that he learned to write by copying (I think it was) The Great Gatsby over and over. How he got from that to Fear & Loathing I've no idea, but I guess it did something for him.

    I've wondered about whether it's worth doing personally. What do you do, just wait until you come across something you particularly like and then do yay many copies?
     
  17. KevinMcCormack

    KevinMcCormack Senior Member

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    I found it helped me for period work. I longhanded copies of some antique letters to get into the character of somebody who would have done that. I typwritered some copies of letters from the 1930s to get into a hardboiled detective character's head.

    It was a sort of writer's version of Method Acting maybe.
     
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  18. Kenosha Kid

    Kenosha Kid Active Member

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    That's an extremely brilliant idea and I'm stealing it, thanks.
     
  19. KevinMcCormack

    KevinMcCormack Senior Member

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    I can't take credit for it - I heard it years ago from another author who was doing Roman era historical fiction, and she bought an antique stylus and some new wax tablets, and tried her hand at latin scratchings.

    So, since I had an Underwood kicking around, I thought that would get me into a head of a depression era private eye. That and my rotary phone, and a glass of whisky.
     
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  20. Kenosha Kid

    Kenosha Kid Active Member

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    I hope you have less tricky relationships with the police and classy dames.
     
  21. Skibbs

    Skibbs Member

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    In my opinion (this may contrast to my earlier views on the matter), you can write without reading. It's like learning to play one song on the guitar. Reading, however, it provides us with context. There isn't a definite need for reading/writing so that you can use the other - but it provides us with context.
     
  22. D.Clarke

    D.Clarke Active Member

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    I think it is worth it. . I have this method where I'll do copywork for 15 minutes, break for 10, come back for another 15, then break for 20, then return again for another 15.

    I have tried copying by typing but I find long-hand copying to be more beneficial and more stress-relieving than typing. As far as material goes, I pick the authors I admire most. H.G Wells is one of my favorites so what I will do is buy his book (currently copying The Invisible Man), and just start from chapter one, straight through.

    I only make adjustments to the dialogue if they are using regional accents.

    I noticed improvement in my writing after my first three sessions of copywork so I looked at it like this: Well, if three sessions can produce such dramatic results, what could.... 100 sessions do?

    It can get boring; but the upside is that it will make you relaxed. I'm always in a state of relaxation after completing a session, so much so that those 10-20 minute breaks turn into 40-1 hour naps.

    Try it for a couple days and then just write some random story. Feel it out
     
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  23. Kenosha Kid

    Kenosha Kid Active Member

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    I imagine it forces close reading too, which is surely no bad thing when you want to be a writer.

    If I can find the time, I will definitely give it a go. Since I'd like to write more short fiction, I'll start with some short story and novella writers.

    Thanks for the advice. This has been a really insightful thread for me.
     
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  24. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

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    I've heard this advice given by Mary Robinette Kowal from Writing Excuses as a way to learn an author's prose. Maybe that's what's happening? You might be seeing an improvement in your prose just from imitating successful prose, though I have to wonder what the long-term benefits of such an exercise are, and whether the time investment yields a sufficient return. My initial instinct is "no," as you're not practicing your prose with your ideas, but someone else's prose with someone else's ideas. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
     
  25. D.Clarke

    D.Clarke Active Member

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    Yes, at first, but that is why I suggested writing your own story after the fact. When you are first learning to play the piano, you do not just jump on the keyboard, and start banging out an A minor chord, B flat major 7ths, creating a piano solo only to be rivaled by Beethoven, not at all.

    You copy the work of the ones who came before you. You study the intervals one by one, re-produce them. You play the scales. You practice the hand drills over and over until it becomes second nature, and so in the case of writing, when you copy the work of your influences, you pick up on their style, and prose.

    It becomes second nature and when you do incorporate your ideas (i.e your own personal influence), that prose will naturally change so that you are no longer imitating the author's prose, but forming a hybrid form of his and your own, thus creating your own style, and isn't that how you form your own style anyway?

    That is how I see it at least. I've been doing copywork for a while now, studying both classic fiction, and classic greek speeches (Aristotle, Isocrates and Demosthenes, some of my favorites to copy), and I can clearly see the influence in my style. My speaking is terrible as ever, but when I start poking those keys with my fingers, my words come to life.
     
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