As some of you may know (others are now informed), I'm a debutant writer. I won't disclose my age, but I'm young (As could you probably guess by my profile picture), and lack much experience writing. I've been writing quite a lot of my novel lately, and have been moving along quite swiftly [Idea wise], but where I find myself struggling is through the execution of some of my sentences. Essentially, the point of this thread was to ask, how can I become a better writer? How can I tell if the flow of my sentences is lively and vivid, or stale and dull? How can I improve on this? Sorry for rambling on and thank you
Read and write more. A lot more. Have other people read it. You'll find out fairly quickly if your flow is a go or a no. As far as improving a no-go flow... read and write more?
Yes, that's a given. As with everything, the best way to improve is to do that thing. I wanted to know how to identify good from bad, and how to best apply it to my writing. Will it simply come naturally?
Probably not without feedback and critique. A piece of writing is a consumable product that requires consumers and markets to reach them. I mean, I can write something and tell if it's good/bad/mediocre in a broad sense, but whether a large-ish group of people would enjoy it is something else. The "come naturally" gets easier with time and experience I suppose, but the best way to expedite things is to solicit a bunch of betas for feedback.
Thank you. I'll keep on writing until I hit that two-week mark. After that, I'll upload some betas to here. You'll have to bear with my writing however haha...
In the meantime, you may want to try reading your work out loud, even dictating it into your phone and then listening to it later. You could also print it out in a different font than you're used to, put it on your e-reader, or in any other way "trick" your brain into forgetting that it's YOUR writing so you can just read it fresh. It's not perfect, but it may get you a bit of distance that will help you see if your writing works for you. (Also, when you're reading other people's stuff, at least some of the time try to read as a writer. Don't let yourself get caught up in the story; pay attention to the actual craft. Better yet, LET yourself get caught up, enjoy the flow, and then go back and figure out why it worked for you.)
Thank you I think that trying to read my writing as a non-biased reader in contrast to the man who actually wrote and can imagine the ideas as they come is really going to help. I'll try some of what you recommended!
Flow and rhythm get tossed out there a lot as lofty goals to aspire to (which everyone should), but they are specific qualities. You can measure them to a degree. They're very closely related too. In music, rhythm is the pause between beats. It's the regular combined with the irregular. In writing, the rhythm is the pause between sentences, which basically means the writing should use long and short sentences (medium too). Not all of one or all of the other. Writing that has a good rhythm is arhythmical, strangely . . . It moves between different lengths. Most definitions of rhythm end there. I believe it goes much farther than that. A lot of writing advice hints at the fact, but never says it outright: Don't use blocks of exposition. Don't do paragraphs of setting. If you pour on metaphor and long words the work will be purple. Pages of backstory are poison. Don't rely on dialog tags for every spoken line. Don't blah blah blah . . . Don't call them rules, call them life lessons from the successful. They may or may not matter, but every one of them is telling you not to fall into bad rhythms. They're telling you to keep everything shifting. My theory is that rhythm, even just at the sentence level, is more than sentence length. It's length and structure and purpose and clarity and truth and lies and everything else. But you should start with sentence length. The shift of rhythm is the flow. It contains elements of the story too. So tension and characterization and arcs and all of these higher concepts of story feed it. The flow is why (in good writing) the reader feels pulled through a paragraph. Some of flow is the craft of mechanics, and some of it is the art of the story. Flow is where art and craft meet. It's very hard to get in place. It doesn't really show up until you're looking at the paragraph level, and getting it to endure through a scene is the mark of an expert. So how do you build it? You have to approach from two directions. From the story, you need characters and problems that matter. From the sentence, you need words that don't die on the page. You kind of have to work on the two halves at the same instant, and if you think just one will carry the flow, it won't. (And I skipped voice . . . Voice rises out of mechanics and then transcends story. It is critical beyond words.) Step one is to write a sentence that works. Step two is write a paragraph that has rhythm. Somehow while you're doing those, you need to have the story and characters feeling real and important. There is a step three, and that's reflecting on what's on the page. I've talked too long again, sorry. Here's an easy exercise that's guaranteed to improve anyone. find your warrior-author hero (the writer you wish you were) take the opening page of their best book and break it into sentences look at the purpose of each sentence and how it aligns with its neighbors (craft of sentence) look at how plot and character are being introduced (art of story). Try to label the points where this happens. find the tension (what question is being left unanswered?) Optional, because well . . . too old school, maybe. It does work but is, as they say, outside of the scope of this text. 6. rewrite the page by hand. (Rhythm also applies to the phrase, which means there's a microflow within the sentence. But that's for another post.)
Wow. Couldn't ask for more. Thank you This is what I need to do. I need to develop and understand the definition of "Rhythm and Flow" in text of my genre.
Hmm the key to your question - "Will it simply come naturally ?" cannot be answered unless you share a paragraph. I cannot share yet in this forum, but I have been told I am a natural poet. I would have never guessed it. But yes it could come naturally, especially if you are meant to write.
@Seven Crowns, you've said my piece again! Are you secretly me? The only thing I would change is the emphasis on sentences. In my humble opinion, the paragraph is the thing, not the sentence. The thread should be called "Flow and Rhythm of Paragraphs." Get the paragraphs right, and the sentences will automatically be right. Other than that, you're me. Maybe a bit stricter than I am, but me nonetheless.
Seven is smart. He/She is the person I go to when I have grammatical blunders questions. Also, we read the same type of literature (Clive Barker fans for life!)
It'll take time and practice. You're young, so that's a good thing, it means you'll have time to find your voice. When I edit I circle different types of words with varying pens of color. Adverbs are one color, nouns are another, etc. Then I look at each word and take out the ones that aren't doing anything for the sentence. You could also count the syllables and beats in each sentence. If you want to get fancy, you can limit yourself to a set amount of syllables per sentence.
Critique some stuff. You will see the mistakes you're making and see how to put them right in other work.
