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I have tried to write many stories. Some are so terrible, that even after I've written a few pages, I don't even want to save it. I'm a programmer by trade, and I believe my "creative brain" is sometimes completely locked away entirely and my writing reads more like a list of facts. But, some read OK. It's kind of funny, because some times, when I read over something I wrote years earlier, I'm impressed and even wonder if I really could have written it. And then, the big story that I've been trying to write off and on for 6 or 7 years, which I've always thought was my best work, read incredibly cheaply to me the last time I reread what I had written.
What is the best way to learn to write better? Post and await comments, or should I seek out a few willing folks to be honest and picky to force me to improve?
Comments
The first thing to do is...
...to keep writing.
Now, I'm not as prolific as everyone else here at BCTS, but I am trying.
I fell into the trap of thinking that I should be producing material that was ready to be read by everyone else in a single pass. In my case, nothing could be further from the truth.
I would suggest the following:
1. Come up with a general outline of what you think your story is about, where it starts, and where it will end. Then start writing along that general guide.
2. You are going to produce a lot of paragraphs that you are going to look at and think about what you were trying to say in the first place. The important thing is to get your thoughts out of your head and onto the paper.
3. Once you have reached a stopping point, wait a couple of days and then go back and read what you created. You can add more description and dialog as you re-read your story.
The one thing that I find is the most important is to not edit yourself as you write. It will get in the way of the story you trying to write.
What do you mean by "not edit
What do you mean by "not edit yourself as you write?"
That means,
let the words flow then go back later, at least several days later and edit what you've done. Don't try to fix everything as you write it because that will often disrupt the process of writing. Let things 'cool off' a bit before you go back to edit them. A few days, a week, whatever, but editing as you go is a good way to lose the thread of what you're doing.
Maggie
I don't know...
The last point - there's a fine line between "editing as you go" to make what you say what you meant - and formal editing where you can rip out whole sections and/or make significant other changes.
Different people write (successfully) differently. Personally, I write from outlines, and revise sections as I go. But, I also find I need to put "completed" sections away for at least a week before I can do a decent edit job on my own work. The reason being before then I see what I MEANT to write instead of what I actually wrote. One way I used to do this was to write in blocks of about 3,000-3,500 words... I'd write block one, then block two, then block three, and only then go back to edit block one. then write block four and back to edit block two, and so on... This had two advantages... The first being that I could actually see what I wrote... The other was I was far enough along in the story to know if I needed to go back and 'add' a little something to hint at what's coming.
Back to the question... Something else you can do, beside writing, is ask someone to be an editor (not a proofreader - that's a different job - but some can do both) for you. The editor would beta read your story, and make constructive criticism (you assume x here, but never say it. Or, how do you get from here to there. Or, this section doesn't make any sense. or....). A good editor will help you take your story to it's best potential. But, you need to be able to work with the person. (I'd suggest find someone who's stories you like, and who's style of writing is "similar" to your own - and ask them. They may agree, they may not. (One thing with editors - both of you have to be able to work together... Just because the person is tallented, and can edit for others doesn't mean they'll work for you.)
Best of luck,
Annette
On top of what everyone else has suggested
Read, read, read and then read some more. Well, at least read well written stories. Observe and pay attention to what you read and learn from it. Don't just stick to one genre or author. Also, pick up some books on writing and grammar they'll help you immensely.
Have delightfully devious day,
it may help....
I have posted this a few times, in other reviews and comments.
Two things
1) Read your writing out loud, this will help you catch your own errors. Like when you forget to mention something or miss a verb.
2) Use a Text To Speech program to have a computer read your own words back to you. This will help you find examples of poorly structured sentences. Listening to a horrible computer voice read your sentence makes errors stand out even more so than you would other wise notice. Also finding simple errors where spell check does not help you out. Also your "reading" brain fills in words that you wouldn't normally find inside text, and so having a computer read it fixes that. There are many free web based text to speech sites, as well as you can use Google Translate, and just post it as if you were going to translate it, but it has a little o)) button that you can click to listen.
Example of another reason why you should let a computer read it for you:
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
Your brain may just fix spelling and other common errors, but a computer cannot fill in the gaps that your brain would normally fix. One of the biggest errors I find in many of the stories posted on Big Closet, is the substitution of the word her for here. Having a text to speech program would pronounce it differently and your brain using different channels would catch that. Some of the better text to speech ones even pronounce too and to slightly different.
Learn to Write Better
Take a class in writing at college
May Your Light Forever Shine
Practice
To write something that is really good, you have to write a lot of crap first.
Sometimes your goal has to be to finish. A finished piece with flaws trumps an amazing unwritten idea every time.
Don't be afraid to rewrite. Sometimes you have to start a story again from scratch.
When you do a rewrite, don't throw away what you already wrote until you have a new version that works better. The old version has good stuff in it you can use.
The hardest part of writing a story is often finding the right place to begin. So don't be surprised if it takes a dozen tries to get the story started.
It sucks to write when you don't feel like it, but a real writer can sit down and do it anyway.
Hm, I certainly have plenty
Hm, I certainly have plenty of the crap to show for my first attempts! :)
I do like the idea of saving old copies. There have certainly been times when I deleted a page that didn't work and then regretted it a few days later.
Rules . . . and Other Writing Myths
If you can go back and read what you wrote several months, or years ago, and it satisfies you . . . you're already a good writer.
Try reading Stephen King's "On Writing".
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Have a story you want to tell
In one sense, the title says it all. If you've got a story you want to tell with engaging characters, you've done the creative part. The rest is craft.
The truth is that different writers do it differently. There's no advice out there that's guaranteed to fit you - you have to look at it and determine if it will work for you, or if it's best pitched in the general direction of the circular file. For example, there are a lot of people who will tell you to just write it and then massage it into something readable. As a retired software developer, I know exactly what that leads to in software: bug-ridden, late, over budget and doesn't meet the customer's expectations. Some people can make it work, but I can't at any length longer than a short story.
One thing I can say about filtering the advice: read analytically. For example, if someone tells you not to end sentences with a preposition, just pull a half dozen books off the shelf by well respected current writers with good sales, pick several pages at random and count the number of sentences that end with a preposition. Once you do that, you'll know what to do with that piece of advice, as well as the people who give it.
This applies to every part of the craft. I picked up a murder mystery as a door prize a few days ago and diagrammed out the plot. This was by an author with a dozen or more books in the series, several of which had made the NYT bestseller list. The main line wasn't too bad, but to support the denouement there was a secondary line with several pieces of information that simply appeared, a cat that did something completely unrealistic and a piece of field test equipment that would never have gotten out of manufacturing with that particular flaw.
As General Eisenhower is reported to have said: "Planning is essential. The plan is worthless."
I wonder if an inversion is possible?
Back many, many years ago, I learned programming using my writing skills as a basis. The analog seemed pretty clear to me. A line of code is like a sentence. A paragraph is like a sub-routine.
I don't know if going the other way would work or not. It may bear some thought, though.
However, I wonder if that is really the challenge. Your comment about your stories seeming to be more of compilations of facts brings this to mind. Perhaps what you are looking for are not writing skills (from the 'mechanical' point of view), but storytelling skills.
See if there is a storytelling guild in your area and check them out. Read some children's books. Watch some movies. One movie that I particularly like that is a wonderful example of the art of storytelling is 'How to Train Your Dragon'. Watch the way they tell parts of the story mostly with dialog and other parts with only visuals (differences between dialog and description.)
I try to visualize what's going on in a story in my head and just type what I see. Other times, I listen to the characters and take dictation.
If this doesn't help, try to find some creative writing classes at your local junior college. Usually, the class costs are not too bad and you'll get a lot out of them.
My thoughts, FWTW...
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
That's actually a good point.
That's actually a good point. I am a terrible storyteller! Hm....
I hadn't really thought of taking classes. I actually work at a large university, but not in the Liberal Arts. I'm not sure I could sit in on classes on that end of campus like I could on my end....I'll have to look into that, though.