'Critiquing' here on 'Writingforum.org' has been the single most important 'new skill' I have acquired. 'Having something to write about' {life experience} makes writing easy. Thank you J. Winters von Knife
Something's to be said about people that can write a story about something they have never experienced before... Tolkien never dropped a ring into a volcano, Card never played anti-gravity games in outer space, and Chuck P. has never started a terrorist organization.
Sorry, but that's a reductio ad absurdum argument. All fiction is extrapolation from the author's knowledge and experience. Obviously, some experiences must be imagined, because either no one has experienced them, or no one has lived to report them. But a writer can perform research. He or she can observe other people's experiences, and can reason by analogy based on other personal experiences. The writer can research locations, preferably by visits in person to pick up on subtleties that would be missed in second-hand reports. The better a writer knows the conditions he or she writes about, the more convincingly the writer can bring the reader into those conditions. Write what you know, and make sure you know what you write. At least as well as most of your readers.
Lots of good answers. But I think the truth of it is that whatever will foster the most improvement depends on what ails you. I would always default to "read a lot of the best" when uncertain, but sometimes that isn't the answer. Sometimes it's getting critiqued, because you might be insecure and therefore have insulated you from the very criticisms that will make you better. Living life might be the very thing if your ideas are stale and need a shot of adrenaline. Not just experience for its own sake, but new, different and challenging experiences. Not far from where I live, there is an enclave of Chinese immigrants, a teeming business district where the signs in Chinese dwarf the ones in English (no, it is not New York's famous "Chinatown"). I found myself walking through there one day, and stopped in a quick-eat place where the customers were standing three rows deep, no signs in English, and everyone was talking in Mandarin - rapidly. I pointed to something appetizing, paid and just let it all rush over me. For a little while, I was the alien. And meeting new people and being in new situations, changes the way you look at things. Sometimes, you need to develop a creative interest other than writing.Mine is music. When I get bogged down and can't quite shake an idea loose, I go drum to Dave Matthews or Eric Clapton, and that lets my brain ease off for a while. When I go back at it, I'm in a better frame of mind.
It's true that another creative pursuit helps you. I make art or design jewelry when I am having trouble writing it helps open my mind. I believe it's because it's exercising the right side of your brain and it helps to open your mind up and free it from too much linear thinking. I would say nearly everything everyone has said would help.
I love to paint in oils and relax by playing the piano but since I started to write just over five years ago I cannot stop and I haven’t pickup a paint brush and rarely tinkle the ivories.
First off, the original question is a little bit absurd, because there is no "one most effective" way to better oneself as a writer. At least, not one that applies to every writer. But, just for the sake of playing along, I'll say the answer is writing. Like Show above, I'll use the music analogy, but I don't really want to push it too hard: Listening to music lets you know what music sounds like, but nobody is going to become an excellent musician by listening. A musician must practice, practice, practice. And this practice has to be directed toward improvement; constant repetition of bad habits doesn't count as practice. Same with writing. Reading good writing teaches you what effects good writing can accomplish, but actually writing teaches you how to accomplish them yourself. I'm a little leery about the old advice to "write what you know." You have to be careful how you take that, how you interpret it. If it means writing about emotions and states of mind and the things that bring those emotions and states of mind about, then that's fine. If it means writing about the external circumstances of your life, that's something I'd question. A lot of writers have the experience of, well, being a struggling young writer, and that's probably why we have a disproportionately large number of novels about struggling young writers. I was a struggling young writer and am now a struggling not-young writer, and my life has been pretty boring, so I wouldn't want to write about it. But the main reason that writing is the most important thing you can do to improve is that only writing will force you to learn about yourself, about what you really feel and believe and love. Writing is a tremendous exercise in self-discovery, and that self-discovery gives you the lens through which you observe your material and the voice with which you sing about it. You won't get that lens or that voice by reading, even if you read only the best works ever written. You WILL get them by writing, writing intensely and as honestly as you can.
Writing, in and of itself, is a masturbatory effort. I have said it before but it bears repeating: "Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent." If you have problems in your writing and you are unable to see them, you are doomed to repeat them over and over and over and ... ad nauseum. As Cogito pointed out, one of the best ways to improve is to read critically. When you find a writer whose work you espectially like, break it down, tear it apart. Figure out why his or her work is different or better than your own. Analyze what works about his or her work and figure out why. One good way of doing this is to join a writers' guild but that is full of pitfalls in and of itself. If you choose to do so, you must be careful that the guild has the same goals as you. Some are very targeted in their work while, for others, the group is more or less a social hour type of setting and offers little more than dinner and comraderie - not very helpful for a writer seeking conscientious give and take critiquing of work. And you want to find a group with a high standard for their writers. Many groups are genre specific, others are an olio of many different genres. Some are fiction or non-fiction specific while others welcome writers in both areas. A good writers' group will allow you a good balance of offering critique of others' work (one of the best ways I know of learning the pitfalls in your own writing) and reading your own work aloud to a receptive and critical audience for feedback. The best groups are a perfect amalgam of all of those things which fcome together to help you improve your writing.
This could be just a shot in the dark, but does anyone else out there have a problem with writing while reading a separate piece of fiction? Does anyone lose their own unique “voice” and start writing like the author of the piece they’re reading? I’ve had a problem with this for a while, and so to avoid the glitch, I refuse to write after reading a separate piece of fiction or vice versa. Is there just a problem with my own skills as a writer or do I need to brush up more on grammar itself?
That happened to me in the beginning, but I've learnt to block off all thoughts of writing in the style of that author, and to just carry on in my own style.
I don't think this was ever a huge problem for me. It was a bit of one when I first started writing. I would always get so lost in it that it never was difficult to focus on my own voice. I guess it's learning to shut everything else out when you write. Best of luck.
I can read other stuff while I'm writing. I generally start a writing session by reading over and correcting my own work from the previous session, so when I start adding more text I've found my own voice again.
I think that's called taking influence. For new writers, when your voice isn't 100% established, you borrow traits that you like from other writers. It's not limited to just reading either, your voice can be influenced from any medium where a story is told.
Exactly, Norm! That is precisely the problem. And my taking influence doesn't just stop in writing as you said. It does take from other story mediums like movies.
I'm pretty sure this is natural for most writers. But with time writers find their own voice and style, so this is nothing to worry about.
I struggle with this same problem! Like the others have said, though... I'm sure with practice you'll be able to use your own "voice" at will.
It's true. I used to have an issue with that myself. I get very immersed in what I'm writing. The more you do it the easier it gets to stay true to your characters.
I wonder and worry about this question. I enjoy writing and am more than proficient at the craft, but my experience with novels has been few with the exception of a few books as assignments. Reading books I can do, but I find no great joy in the endless amount of detail that plague some of the world's "classics". Put off by novels, I have recently turned to graphic novels, and now (since my interest lies in theater) I am reading plays, which are much easier for me to follow. From all of this I get that I am an easy listener, but a spacey reader and prefer speech to excessive explanation. What is your opinion? Do you have to be a great reader to be a great writer?
Yes. Reading and writing go hand in hand. Since you like reading plays, you will probably find writing a good play to be easier than writing a good novel or poem.
Why not read novels that _aren't_ "classics" and aren't heavy in the kinds of detail that you don't like?
If you don't like the classics then don't read them. Find books and genres that you do like and read them. Just because they are considered classic, doesn't mean you have to enjoy them.
