I ask myself this question every day… The best way to tackle writing is threefold: first of all you need to read read read. The only way a true writer can hone his craft is by reading as much as you can. It trains the brain to think like a writer and to recognize good writing. When I was a kid, my parents had a rule that I was only allowed to watch tv after reading 2 books per week. I guess you could say my addiction to tv lead to creating an avid reader. My father wasn’t too choosy about what we read, just as long as it was a book. I tended to gravitate towards sci-fi, and still remember some of my greatest influences were these novels-- Fahrenheit 451 for example.
The second way to become a better writer is to write as much as you can. I sometimes think of writing like the stomach flu--you gotta get it all out and once you do, you feel much better--however, the process itself is gut-wrenching. I wrote 9 unpublished novels before I got my first acceptance letter from an agent and publisher. I would write day and night, and even when I was supposed to be writing copy for City Year (my first job out of college). My novels were deep dark Bret Easton Ellis/Jay McInerny type of writing--so stuff only a select group of people was really interested in reading. Once I signed with my first agent, he gave me the best advice. He said to read John Grisham and write stories like that because that is what people want to read and that is what sells.
This brings me to my third point--which is more a point about actual writing. When you are writing a book, think of writing in page numbers--like 15 pages per day. This gives you a definitive start and finish. I find myself getting into trouble and procrastinating when I don’t have definitive deadlines. It’s easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel if you know you have 5 pages left of the 15 you set out to write versus just writing til whenever.
If you follow these three points you will already be ahead of the game. When you get to a stopping point, have a trusted reader read your writing and give you constructive criticism--and don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board. Editing is part of writing too!
I thought I was a terrific writer in high school. When I reached college, my Shakespeare professor told me I had a poor grasp of idiom and asked how long I had been away from the old country. In grad school, I couldn't pass the exam to opt out of the basic writing course.
Now, I write for a living. A book I wrote was named an award-winning finalist for a national book award. My newsletter won an award for publication excellence. I've published poetry and received a "Bravo" from a MacArthur Fellow (a genius award winner).
I don't know how people become good writers, in general. But I can tell you how I became a good writer in two genres - exposition and poetry. And they involve two different paths.
The path to becoming a good writer of exposition (writing that explains things) was pretty brief and direct. When I flunked the writing test in grad school (business school, not English), I was encouraged to take a class in writing taught by a PhD in psycholinguistics. I learned to write clearly and effectively in those three months.
Here's what we did. We read a piece of writing, usually something fairly technical. Then we wrote a letter or factual document about it. Then we sat down with someone unfamiliar with the material and taped them as they read it aloud. We called this a "psycholinguistic protocol", or for us, just "the Protocol". As the subject read our writing, they also described the experience of trying to understand it - "it was a tragedy, terrible functioning", "OK, I thought I had it. I get what a tragedy is. But terrible functioning? Are you referring to the tragedy or to how the hammer worked?" And like that. Through the whole document.
Then we rewrote the document. And sat down with another subject and another, until we could get the document as clear as possible. Strunk and White was our bible.
- Read, read, read, read, read, read. Everyone else said this also because it's true. But not just anything, read various styles of writing, and create a basic taxonomy of styles of writing that you can refer to mentally, in a mindset that's more like concentrated practice than just breezy reading. Pay attention to structure, tone, form, use of (or wilful disregard for) grammar, and cadences, etc.
- Learn how to break down basic sentence structure. Know what a gerund phrase and subordinate clause are, or a sentence splice. You can ignore the "rules" but you need to know them.
- Clarification to #2 that's the most important: identify instinctively the subject, verb, and object of your sentences. Every sentence has 'em, at least subject and verb. This isn't a firm rule but there's an excellent chance that your sentence's perceived meaning hinges on them, no matter how complicated. That last sentence by the way was "there" "is" and "chance" mind you, not the thing that looks like a sentence and follows the word "that." Now that you know what they are exploit them. Chances are there's a better verb than variations on "to be" like "is" "was" "has been" to be had, for one example.
- Write. But don't just write whatever comes to mind (though you should do that too): write to form. Now that you're being observant of how certain styles are structured and their conventions you can try for yourself. Attempt to mimic the way certain kinds of prose are written.
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