Best Ways to Train Writing Skills

[YesNo]

Some writing suggestions from someone who has not written a book. However, this is what I would do.

1) Go to the library or bookstore and find where you expect your book will be placed when it is finished. Read some of the books that are there already.

2) Write a first draft without trying to revise it. Just get something finished. Continue reading similar books to the one you are writing.

3) Revise your draft so another human being will find it worth reading it. By this time you should not need to read any other books if you have done steps 1 and 2.

[Grit]

Improving writing is a topic I've been longing to discuss at length, though I lacked a place to do so until now.

These are things I wish I'd known when I started so many years ago, because they would have saved a bunch of time and wasted drafts.

1.) The first draft masterpiece doesn't exist. This is the first thing a new writer needs to learn. You're never going to sit down, write 180,000 words in a week and then possess your very own War & Peace. So where does this idea come from? I believe this farce came from non-writers romanticizing the greats, or perhaps writers romanticizing themselves for business purposes. I have long considered saying I wrote my next book in a week without sleep but that would be disingenuous to all the kids trying to make their dreams into stories.

2.) Read - Read everything. You don't like Russian novels? Too bad kid, you're reading one. Don't enjoy horror? That's nice, here's Hell House by Richard Matheson, enjoy the lesson on tension. You can't just read in a vacuum, only selecting stuff you like or you won't develop as well as a writer. Read everything under the sun, and you'll develop range and a wider scope of ability. The story I feel most inspired my horror is a literary short story by Joyce Carol Oates Where are you Going, Where have you Been?. You never know where inspiration will appear. Stephen King advocates this same strategy and it actually makes total sense.

When you're writing, you're drawing on experiences for ideas, as much as we love the 'muses' they're really just the result of our culminated experiences. Getting a bunch of life experience is hard, especially for the bookish folk (sup) so reading can fill your mind with experiences you draw on in your own work, often unconsciously. I like to think of the ideas we can draw on as a pool in our mind, and reading more books adds liquid to that pool of water until it's a lake, and maybe one day, a roiling ocean.

Read if you're waiting in line, read on transit, listen to audiobooks if you drive. Think of books as items that add points to your mana pool.

3.) Read non-fiction. If you haven't read Elements of Style, you're missing out, that book will grant readability and clarity to your work and let your ideas shine. Story by Robert Mckee is about screenwriting but also invaluable. Elements of Eloquence will teach you how to turn a phrase.

4.) Learn to love editing. I don't mean love in the sense that you love pizza, I mean truly, deeply appreciate and care for editing. Editing is the writer's best friend, though when I started I thought editing served as trash time, I hated it. The more you edit your work, the better it becomes, and I believe the editing process is when a writer will see the greatest growth. You carry all the corrections and fine-tuning you make into your next draft.

5.) Your first draft of your first novel is going to suck. You will love it and think it's a gift from god while you're writing it, but hopefully you have people in your life who can tell you the truth. It sucks. Editing can fix that (editing can fix anything, it's basically magic).

6.) Take the advice of writing teachers and gurus with a grain of salt. My first college writing professor shared in my cigarillos on break and didn't teach me much but allowed me to write for school. My second writing professor tried to convince us to give up on writing in the first lecture. He was bitter, angry and disenchanted with writing, in other words, he had it all wrong. Writing is ****ing magic too.

The writing expert teacher/guru always struck me as a paradox. If they're so good, why don't they write for a living? Why do they work for a college making minimal dollars? If they really knew how to be successful at writing, wouldn't they be? The answer is yes, and most often writing professors and teachers are failed writers. This is a hard truth and not to say these folks don't have anything helpful to say; just don't take their word as gospel.

7.) Brandon Sanderson is a best-selling author and I learned more from a semester of his youtube lectures than I did in physical college. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9X4eSi42vQ

These are just a few of my thoughts.

[YesNo]

I usually go to YouTube for everything including how to open the gas tank of an unfamiliar auto or how to get a toilet unstuck.

Sanderson's class looks like it would be interesting.

[Dreamwoven]

As you say, Grit, writing a book is a hard slog. First, just choosing the subject isn't easy, then reading around it, and making sure what you want to say has not been covered by someone else. Just the length of a book is daunting. I've published several books and it is always a big job, not to mention then trying to get it published...Trying out your idea in a blog is one way to start. I've always wanted to write a book about neoliberalism but never got round to it. Thus is a subject that deserves a lot more consideration.