How to be a Better Writer

About four years ago, one of my colleagues at work found out I was a writer and asked, “So, tell me Anthony, how can I be a better writer?”

I don’t claim any special wisdom in this department, but I do claim two things: first, that I have opinions about the matter, and second, that I wrote a long email to my friend about it, an email which I thought I’d posted on my blog. Unfortunately, after an extensive search, I wasn’t able to find the post.

Now, I could attempt to clean this email up prior to posting it here, but I’m afraid that if I do that, I’ll just end up going several years without posting it.

SO! Here’s that email, largely unedited, on “How to be a better writer!”

Sorry it took so long to respond to your question about how to be a better writer – I thought I wrote an article on this on my blog, or perhaps in an email to a friend, but if so, I couldn’t find it. Then I tried to write a long response, but that turned into something book length. So let me give you the short version.

• First, just write! That’s the best thing anyone can do to become a better writer. Ten thousand hours of practice can build mastery in almost any skill, so the first thing you can do to help yourself is to write regularly – preferably, about whatever comes to mind, so you’re not trying to practice when you’re on the spot.
• Try morning pages. The best tool I know to help people get into the habit of writing is to write morning pages – writing, each day, ideally when you get up, three pages in a notebook. Write bla bla bla if you have to – you’ll get bored of it quickly, and will write what comes to mind.
• Take a creativity course. The book The Artist’s Way is one of the most famous of these, and it’s what inspires me to suggest morning pages. Actually, I’ve never finished this course – I always get so energized just trying it that I get sucked off into my own projects. Try one that works for you.
• Read more than you write. You can’t consciously choose the words that come out as you write them; they come from your subconscious. So it’s important to feed your subconscious with a lot of interesting material to help you generate a lot of interesting material of your own.
• Read great writing of the type you want to create. What you enjoy reading most might not be the writing you want to emulate most, so hunt down the great writers of the type of writing you’re aiming for, read them, and try to figure out what you like about them – and what makes them tick.
• Read great books on writing. The first two I always recommend to people are Ayn Rand’s (yes, that Ayn Rand) The Art of Fiction and The Art of Nonfiction. More than any book I’ve ever read, the Art of Fiction boils down what makes good fiction writing. John Gardner’s On Being a Novelist is another great, but there are so many of these it’s hard to pick one.
• Read great books on style. The two I recommend to people the most are The Elements of Style by Strunk and White and Building Great Sentences by Brooks Landon. Strunk and White is the classic, and Building Great Sentences is its antidote. If you have to pick one, pick Building Great Sentences – hands down.
• Do writing exercises. There are many, many of these – The Artist’s Way has some, at Barnes and Noble you can find dozens of books like 500 Writing Prompts or Creativity Bootcamp that have others; the important thing is to try different writing styles on.
• Try timed challenges. Write to the End (writetotheend.com) tries 20 minute writing challenges; Shut Up and Write ( meetup.com/shutupandwritesfo ) tries (I think) an hour; National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org) tries 50,000 words in a month. These cure you of the notion you need to wait for your muse.
• Join a writing group. Not a critique group – those are dangerous until you get more confidence in and acceptance of your own writing (and a thicker skin). I already mentioned Write to the End and Shut Up and Write, but there are many more (even some at Google, such as the Creative Writing Lunch).
• Take on writing projects. Write novels, write stories, write essays, write memoirs, write documentation, write songs, write plays, write poetry, write haiku, write impenetrable postmodern explorations of what it means for something to be writing – but take on a writing project that has a beginning, middle, and end …
• Finish what you write! This is so important I wanted to write this earlier, but the problem is, it depends on what you’re writing for. If you just want to improve your skill, reading Strunk and White might do it – but if you want your writing to go further, you need to finish what you write.
• Don’t edit while you write! Some people do this very well, but most people have two modes: producing text, and refining text. Unless you’re very confident in your ability to not rework the first paragraph of something forever, make sure you first finish, then edit. But before you do that …
• Let your manuscripts cool off. It’s hard to have perspective right after you’ve finished something. At least sleep on it, if you have time; ideally, come back to a story after a week or two and see if what you wrote before still makes sense to you and does what you wanted it to. In the meantime …
• Work on something else. Start something new. Creating a new work has an almost magical way of solving problems you have in the work you have cooling on the back burner. Your skills improve, you’re not invested in your old ideas, and you come back with a fresh start.
• Revise your work! Give your manuscript at least a once over. I guarantee, it’s not perfect. The books Self Editing for Fiction Writers or The Elements of Editing can help you with this task. It’s worth working on something a bit until you can’t see anything obviously wrong to it.
• Share your work with a friendly audience. You’re not ready for a critique group yet; they’re often way too harsh. What you want are three friendly reviewers: a coach to help with your skills, a critic to help find flaws, and a cheerleader to praise goodness – and if the cheerleader complains, listen very closely to them.
• Revise your work again before sending it out. Listen to your friendly critics. Revise your work. Make it the best it can be. Then you’re ready to send it out – to a critique group if you have to and if you have one, but ideally, to where you want the work received or published.
• Keep your work circulating until sold. This may not apply to bloggers, writers of memoirs, and internal communications, but if you’ve got something you want to send to an external audience, send it to as many places as you can. Some great books went to dozens of publishers before getting accepted.
• Don’t argue with your critics. Whether it’s a friend, a critique group, or an editor, they’re not critiquing you to hurt your feelings. Listen carefully, and perhaps if there’s some small misconception, feel free to clear it up, but ask yourself – why wasn’t your story so clear that they got it the first time?
• Solve the problems your critics raise, but don’t feel compelled to use their solutions. Humans are great at confabulating fake reasons for the feelings they have. Don’t feel the need to use every suggestion your critics raise – but if two or more have problems at the same spot, listen closely.
• Learn from your genre. Whether it’s writing a thesis, writing documentation, or writing science fiction stories, there are documents out there on the pitfalls of the genre and the techniques from success, from How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation to the Evil Overlord List.
• Learn from the style guide. If you’re aimed at a particular market, whether it’s a science fiction magazine accepting William Shunn’s document format, or a book publisher who wants the Chicago Manual of Style, or it’s the American Psychological Association, read the style book. With a grain of salt, of course.
• Learn from publication. Once something is published, take a look at the published work. I can guarantee you, you’ll find something about it you’d do differently now, whether it’s a typo or a new way to phrase things. Think carefully about this difference and what it can teach you.
• Find a great critique group. By this point, you’ve been exposed to enough information to have your own opinions and to make up your own mind – and that’s the right time to engage a whole bunch of other opinionated, thoughtful people to get their ideas of how to improve your work.
• Find a great workshop. These are harder to get into, but put you in touch with great writers of your particular genre or style and can really take you to the next level, if that’s what you want.
• Find a great program – or embark on a great project. If you really want to be a writer, some people suggest a MFA program or other longer-term, intensive course. I simply prefer to take on little projects like 21 book urban fantasy series; these force you to learn some of the same things. 😀