Like many writers, I'm just starting out, and what I write is crap. The problem is, it doesn't seem to be getting any better.
So, how do I learn to write?
So, how do I learn to write?
Learning to Learn to Write
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If it's any encouragement at all, what you just posted was great: short and to the point, nice personality, correctly spelled and punctuated. I know it may not sound like much, but that's a lot right there.
Since you can already express yourself effectively in writing -- you just did -- can you give more of an idea of what you're struggling with? What kind of writing are you trying to do: short fiction, novels, literary, genre? And what's problematic about it, specifically?
Reading what you want to write is always a good idea. Another would be reading a book about how to read -- that is, what to look for in writing. Find a writer who excels at what you want to do well, and analyze their writing.
I own a copy of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing," and it's surprisingly good. Your public library should have some basic "how to write" books that might be worth checking out.
I hope this helps!
Since you can already express yourself effectively in writing -- you just did -- can you give more of an idea of what you're struggling with? What kind of writing are you trying to do: short fiction, novels, literary, genre? And what's problematic about it, specifically?
Reading what you want to write is always a good idea. Another would be reading a book about how to read -- that is, what to look for in writing. Find a writer who excels at what you want to do well, and analyze their writing.
I own a copy of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing," and it's surprisingly good. Your public library should have some basic "how to write" books that might be worth checking out.
I hope this helps!
Best tip from me:
Write more.
Writing is the method of learning. Sure, you can read. But it won't teach you how to place words down on paper. Write more, let other critique it and then revise(don't just edit your work after being critiqued, rework your writing style).
Try a regiment. Write 1000 words a day. Think of it as exercise for you writing neural pathways. Or your fingers...
Write more.
Writing is the method of learning. Sure, you can read. But it won't teach you how to place words down on paper. Write more, let other critique it and then revise(don't just edit your work after being critiqued, rework your writing style).
Try a regiment. Write 1000 words a day. Think of it as exercise for you writing neural pathways. Or your fingers...
LucindaLynx
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I admit, I have that problem too. My problems seem to be (others have told me, that is) passive voice and POV. There are other problems too, but I afraid those two are the worst. I've struggled to work with the second one, but the first one...no, no matter what, it's always there. It may be, that my nationality may affect (I'm Finnish). Anyway, the problem is there and even sometimes some readers 'get' what I write in English, others don't.
I feel your pain. I am learning to learn to write too. I echo what others have said: read, and write. Get your writing critiqued. Read how-to-write books. Keep practicing and have faith in yourself!
Well, I mostly write short fiction, in the science-fiction genre. I think my real problem is that I'm just not learning from my mistakes.
Also, a lot of times when I'm writing something I'll write about a page, then suddenly decide the idea was a bad one and throw it out.
Finish your bad ideas.
If they really are bad, you'll get good practice with voice and style and shizz by being forced to focus on wording over story.
If they aren't as bad as you think, your confidence will improve.
Win-win.
Oh, don't throw away those pages! Really! You may be mistaking faulty execution for bad ideas, and lose some good stuff via your current filing method! Also, if you hang on to your old writing, it will be easier to monitor how your writing improves over time.
I think you must be learning from your mistakes if you're seeking help in rectifying them. So that's something.
This may sound bass-ackwards, but sometimes it's a good idea to make your writing beg to be written. Right now you're the one doing the wooing, and maybe you should reverse that dynamic for a while. What if you started trying to write some saleable nonfiction -- there are a lot of journals that always need book or product reviews, for instance. You'll still be keeping your hand in so far as writing is concerned. You may get a much-needed boost from making a sale or two. Best of all, the fiction you'd like to write may be miffed by the lack of attention, and may try to win you back by giving you some irresistibly strong story premises.
Also, there are some great books on science fiction writing that may help you with both the writing itself and how to figure out if something is indeed a "bad" idea. And doing lots of reading of the sort you'd like to write will tell you what's been done to death and what works.
I hope this helps!
I think you must be learning from your mistakes if you're seeking help in rectifying them. So that's something.
This may sound bass-ackwards, but sometimes it's a good idea to make your writing beg to be written. Right now you're the one doing the wooing, and maybe you should reverse that dynamic for a while. What if you started trying to write some saleable nonfiction -- there are a lot of journals that always need book or product reviews, for instance. You'll still be keeping your hand in so far as writing is concerned. You may get a much-needed boost from making a sale or two. Best of all, the fiction you'd like to write may be miffed by the lack of attention, and may try to win you back by giving you some irresistibly strong story premises.
Also, there are some great books on science fiction writing that may help you with both the writing itself and how to figure out if something is indeed a "bad" idea. And doing lots of reading of the sort you'd like to write will tell you what's been done to death and what works.
I hope this helps!
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You learn to write by writing.
If you need permission to write crud, I grant it to you.
Three books on writing that I gained the most from:
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland - Chapter One is called "Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say." If your heart leapt in delight at that assertion, you will adore this book. (If your response was to recoil in horror, you may not like this book so much. Fair warning.)
On Writing by Stephen King - it's about half a memoir and half a book on how to write and a fantastic read all the way.
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield - this isn't just about writing, but about creative blocks in general, but most of the examples he uses come from his own tumultuous writing career. (I should pick this one up more often and just go straight to page 22, to be honest.)
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland - Chapter One is called "Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say." If your heart leapt in delight at that assertion, you will adore this book. (If your response was to recoil in horror, you may not like this book so much. Fair warning.)
On Writing by Stephen King - it's about half a memoir and half a book on how to write and a fantastic read all the way.
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield - this isn't just about writing, but about creative blocks in general, but most of the examples he uses come from his own tumultuous writing career. (I should pick this one up more often and just go straight to page 22, to be honest.)
I'm the founder, President, largest contributar and the biggest drinker (Modelo in hand) of the Writing Crappy Do I Hunting Lodge. We accept oftenly members that are new and trouble they have writing at times. Understand do we all, done that been there. Must say I that your post indicates and entremely poficient style of writing which may disclude you from this most pretentious of guilds pertaining writing; Disappointment you may expereience in the most horrendous manner with our regection but seriously you must write much much much much much much worst than you post to even be considered. And tell you can - I write extremely serious pieces of the most serious fiction, seriously.
James says it best! You can write crap, don't worry about it because you are doing the most important thing to improve.
As a Neophyte Writer (that's my title and no one can have it, hey I worked hard for it) with the ridiculous notion of "I have a story to tell, I can write it" there are one or two things I'm attempting. They may or may not help you but my unprofessional advice is free (mainly cause I can't get beer through the internet).
First and foremost is don't get discouraged. All writers started out learning.
Don't try to be a professional writer the first time at bat.
Keep with the short stories as exercises to improve. Let the novels and series wait; don't worry they're patient.
Write some flash fiction or vignettes concentrating on areas you have the most difficulties with.
Never, ever, ever throw out any writing you've done, ever.
Do some critiquing in the SYW forums. Learn from other peoples difficulties.
Ask other people for advice. My mother-in-law helped me out with the pacing of a short story last week.
First drafts are suppose to be crap and the second will still be bad.
In first drafts remember only a noun and verb are needed for a complete sentence; an object helps too. "I like beer." is perfectly acceptable. Later you can change it to "I do enjoy the rich, hearty flavor of imported Scottish Ales while watching an English Premier football game." (I went through 3 revisions to get that sentence, now I'm saving it in my notes.)
See my sig., don't let too many ideas get in the way of writing.
Don't get discouraged. Damn I know how depressing it can get, but keep at it and one day I'll say "I remember helping Schilcote out when he first started writing. He wouldn't be so famous if it were not for me."
Best of luck and keep up the writing.
James says it best! You can write crap, don't worry about it because you are doing the most important thing to improve.
As a Neophyte Writer (that's my title and no one can have it, hey I worked hard for it) with the ridiculous notion of "I have a story to tell, I can write it" there are one or two things I'm attempting. They may or may not help you but my unprofessional advice is free (mainly cause I can't get beer through the internet).
First and foremost is don't get discouraged. All writers started out learning.
Don't try to be a professional writer the first time at bat.
Keep with the short stories as exercises to improve. Let the novels and series wait; don't worry they're patient.
Write some flash fiction or vignettes concentrating on areas you have the most difficulties with.
Never, ever, ever throw out any writing you've done, ever.
Do some critiquing in the SYW forums. Learn from other peoples difficulties.
Ask other people for advice. My mother-in-law helped me out with the pacing of a short story last week.
First drafts are suppose to be crap and the second will still be bad.
In first drafts remember only a noun and verb are needed for a complete sentence; an object helps too. "I like beer." is perfectly acceptable. Later you can change it to "I do enjoy the rich, hearty flavor of imported Scottish Ales while watching an English Premier football game." (I went through 3 revisions to get that sentence, now I'm saving it in my notes.)
See my sig., don't let too many ideas get in the way of writing.
Don't get discouraged. Damn I know how depressing it can get, but keep at it and one day I'll say "I remember helping Schilcote out when he first started writing. He wouldn't be so famous if it were not for me."
Best of luck and keep up the writing.
If you keep thinking it's crap now, you'll only think it's crap later. Just keep going and have a little confidence in yourself. Trust me, I had the same problem.
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Write, revise, write, revise, and repeat this until you have a good story. You must give yourself permission to start at the "writing crap" step and work your way to writing some good stuff. The truth is, even published authors started out writing crap. That's how they learned to write well.
Don't throw away the pages you think are bad. My best ever writing lesson came from Mur Lafferty. After the put-your-butt-in-the-chair-and-write-rule, the second one is that you are allowed to suck (or rather, your writing is). No one expects your first draft to be genius. Great stories are written in revision, so finish those supposed bad pages and when you have finished them start identifying the problems and fix them. That is the only way to finish work you are proud of and learn in the process.
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Stick with it. Keep hanging out here. Read, write, learn. Keep on keeping on.
Ira Glass's words were really inspirational for me.
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I can never do the "rub your tummy/ pat your head" thing. Or is it the other way round? Pat your tummy and rub your head? I'm sorry, I know it's pathetic, but no matter how hard I try the rubby hand starts patting and the patting hand starts rubbing. And before you know it I'm doing some weird morris dancing thing like Peter Crouch celebrating a goal or a middle aged man at his daughter's wedding disco. Perhaps the Mem is 100% right - men are no good at multi-tasking.
It can be the same with writing. Just when I think I've got this adjective/ adverb things nailed, along comes dialogue and grammar. So I try and get that right, and then I find that my plots and ideas are wrong. Then someone says "show not tell" and that's another thing to think about. And ...
Sometimes you just need to hit pause, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or whatever hits the spot for you) and take some deep breaths.
Writing isn't one skill - it's several. At first it looks easy. You simply plonk your fingers down on the keyboard and words happen. But then you find that it's nowhere near as simple as that. The really good writers make it look much easier than it really is.
At this point, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the different elements that make up writing aren't actually that difficult. Anyone can learn them.
The bad news is that, like all that rubbing and patting, the real art comes when you start to pull all the different elements together.
What to do? You conquer writing the way that we first climbed Everest. One baby step at a time. Don't worry about the plot when you are perfecting your writing style. Don't worry about your writing style when you are working on your characters. Make lots of mistakes, put lots of words on the page, but focus on one thing at a time. Don't worry about the bits you can't do yet. They will come.
One final thought. There's a bit of management theory which might help. The clever management gurus who talk about management as a proxy for actually doing it have come up with this natty little progression about how anyone learns any skill.
At first comes unconscious incompetence. We are not very good at the new skill, but we don't know that. My writing looks perfectly brilliant to me.
Then comes conscious incompetence. We learn enough about the new skill to know that we are not doing it right yet. Uggh, my writing sucks.
Next, conscious competence. We know how to do it, but it takes lots of effort and thinking about. My writing is pretty good when I work at it really hard.
Finally, we reach the nirvana of unconscious incompetence. We have mastered the skill to the point at which we don't have to think about it any more. I find I can write pretty well in my first draft, although I am not sure how I do it.
Find out more about the conscious competence model here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence
From the OP, my guess is that you in stage 2 - conscious incompetence. That may sound a bit negative, but it's a hell of a lot better than being in stage 1. And stage 3 is just around the corner ... as soon as you learn to pat your tummy and rub your head.
It can be the same with writing. Just when I think I've got this adjective/ adverb things nailed, along comes dialogue and grammar. So I try and get that right, and then I find that my plots and ideas are wrong. Then someone says "show not tell" and that's another thing to think about. And ...
Sometimes you just need to hit pause, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or whatever hits the spot for you) and take some deep breaths.
Writing isn't one skill - it's several. At first it looks easy. You simply plonk your fingers down on the keyboard and words happen. But then you find that it's nowhere near as simple as that. The really good writers make it look much easier than it really is.
At this point, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the different elements that make up writing aren't actually that difficult. Anyone can learn them.
The bad news is that, like all that rubbing and patting, the real art comes when you start to pull all the different elements together.
What to do? You conquer writing the way that we first climbed Everest. One baby step at a time. Don't worry about the plot when you are perfecting your writing style. Don't worry about your writing style when you are working on your characters. Make lots of mistakes, put lots of words on the page, but focus on one thing at a time. Don't worry about the bits you can't do yet. They will come.
One final thought. There's a bit of management theory which might help. The clever management gurus who talk about management as a proxy for actually doing it have come up with this natty little progression about how anyone learns any skill.
At first comes unconscious incompetence. We are not very good at the new skill, but we don't know that. My writing looks perfectly brilliant to me.
Then comes conscious incompetence. We learn enough about the new skill to know that we are not doing it right yet. Uggh, my writing sucks.
Next, conscious competence. We know how to do it, but it takes lots of effort and thinking about. My writing is pretty good when I work at it really hard.
Finally, we reach the nirvana of unconscious incompetence. We have mastered the skill to the point at which we don't have to think about it any more. I find I can write pretty well in my first draft, although I am not sure how I do it.
Find out more about the conscious competence model here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence
From the OP, my guess is that you in stage 2 - conscious incompetence. That may sound a bit negative, but it's a hell of a lot better than being in stage 1. And stage 3 is just around the corner ... as soon as you learn to pat your tummy and rub your head.
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I have a folder called Boneyard.
I never throw any of my words out wholesale. If a whole passage has to go, into the Boneyard! Stories that weren't working and I've given up? Boneyard! Ideas that sounded good at the time but I couldn't make gel? Boneyard!
I have same problem with Schilcote and Summerwriter. I am starting out, and English is my second language. (You could say I write in Chinglish. ^_-)
I found that a lot of books and advice from people who said "write from your heart", "believe in yourself", or "just let it flow" assumed that the writer already had good command of the English language.
Well, I don't. Even my kids have problem understanding me sometimes. I am not ashamed to admit that I have problems...with English. It is hard to improve your writing if you don't even know what good writing means. So, I read A LOT OF good novels, but still, what makes good story good? What makes a great writer great?
That's what craft books are for. There are tons of good books out there to teach good grammar, style and how to write vivid descriptions. And no, they are not basic or boring. Most of them are very engaging to read, and you learn a ton from them. Native speakers may think they don't need them, but I think there is always something to learn.
When I asked (bribed) my teenage daughter to read the first chapter of my WIP, I knew what she was going to say. It was wordy, ineffective. The emotion was bogged down by clumsy language, and the pacing was like snail. She confirmed everything I thought, but was unable to offer any suggestions to fix it. (She is only fifteen, but being a bookworm that she is, you'd think she'll know a thing or two about how to write good...eh, well.)
So, I went on Amazon and bought all those good style books and started reading them. Even before I finished reading the first book my writing began to change. No more wishy-washy passive voice, no more wordy adverbs, used active verbs...etc. I still don't write very well, but at least my writing is tighter and stronger than before. That's tangible improvement.
Still a long way to go. A lot more to learn. That's the fun. ^_^
I found that a lot of books and advice from people who said "write from your heart", "believe in yourself", or "just let it flow" assumed that the writer already had good command of the English language.
Well, I don't. Even my kids have problem understanding me sometimes. I am not ashamed to admit that I have problems...with English. It is hard to improve your writing if you don't even know what good writing means. So, I read A LOT OF good novels, but still, what makes good story good? What makes a great writer great?
That's what craft books are for. There are tons of good books out there to teach good grammar, style and how to write vivid descriptions. And no, they are not basic or boring. Most of them are very engaging to read, and you learn a ton from them. Native speakers may think they don't need them, but I think there is always something to learn.
When I asked (bribed) my teenage daughter to read the first chapter of my WIP, I knew what she was going to say. It was wordy, ineffective. The emotion was bogged down by clumsy language, and the pacing was like snail. She confirmed everything I thought, but was unable to offer any suggestions to fix it. (She is only fifteen, but being a bookworm that she is, you'd think she'll know a thing or two about how to write good...eh, well.)
So, I went on Amazon and bought all those good style books and started reading them. Even before I finished reading the first book my writing began to change. No more wishy-washy passive voice, no more wordy adverbs, used active verbs...etc. I still don't write very well, but at least my writing is tighter and stronger than before. That's tangible improvement.
Still a long way to go. A lot more to learn. That's the fun. ^_^
One of the best books I've read—and I've read a lot of them—on writing English for people who write fiction is the fabulous It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences by June Casagrande.
Every writer has to start somewhere. I don't think there are many writers out there who began their careers with best-sellers.
Yes, it is a LOT of hard work, but if you are truly determined to be a writer, stick with it.
The more I write, the more I polish my skills, and the same will happen to you.
Good luck!
Yes, it is a LOT of hard work, but if you are truly determined to be a writer, stick with it.
The more I write, the more I polish my skills, and the same will happen to you.
Good luck!
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I like this post, and something tells me that there's a whole hell of a lot of truth in that encapsulation.
Gonna go and follow that link.
Thanks for sharing, O!.
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The more you write, the better you get but you might not be able to see it. I know, objectively, that I write much better now that I did last novel. That said, I still think it's crap :S
You're probably better than you think (we're always harder on ourselves) but you will only get better and better by writing more, reading more and taking on challenges.
Have you ever done NaNoWriMo? I have schedule every November as the month where I challenge myself to write something I would probably never have written if I didn't have "permission to suck". Last year, it was paranormal romance. I don't do contemporary and I don't do romance usually, I had a great time and I learned a lot and it's become one of my two main WiPs.
You're probably better than you think (we're always harder on ourselves) but you will only get better and better by writing more, reading more and taking on challenges.
Have you ever done NaNoWriMo? I have schedule every November as the month where I challenge myself to write something I would probably never have written if I didn't have "permission to suck". Last year, it was paranormal romance. I don't do contemporary and I don't do romance usually, I had a great time and I learned a lot and it's become one of my two main WiPs.
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