Becoming a Better Writer

No one is born a great writer, just like no one is born a great tennis player or a great musician. Even the supremely talented Mozart had to learn to play the piano. This is good news, for each of us can become a good writer, and even a great writer, if we're willing to put in the time. Here are some suggestions for moving towards greatness.

1. Write! I know, I know. How can that be the secret? It's so obvious. Writers write. Good writers write a lot. Great writers write even more. Write a daily journal entry. Write poems. Write stories. Write from prompts. Write down what you see, what you hear, what you taste, smell, feel. Writing is a skill and to get good at any skill, you have to practice. Write whether anybody reads your work or critiques it. Write every day and you'll get better.

2. Read! Read everything: newspapers, magazines, graphic novels, potboilers, essays, Internet postings. But focus as much of your reading as you can on the greats--the great essayists, the great poets, the great novelists. Human beings imitate language. That's how we learn to speak. We have an innate ability for language and we hear and absorb it and speak it. Similarly, we read great prose and in a mysterious process, we absorb the patterns of sentence structure and phrasing. If you read great stuff, your own writing will improve.

3. Read some things twice. Read a bad novel for the plot and then reread it and figure out why it isn't good. Why is the dialog corny? Why are the characters flat or unbelievable? Why is the plot thin? Similarly read great writing twice. Why is it beautiful? Why is it original? Why is it great? How does it work?

4. Keep at it. There's room in our world for many more beautiful books, stories, poems, essays, meditations. Few novelists publish their first novel. Often what is called "first" is first published. In a drawer or computer file sit two or three or eight other books that were all part of the learning process. No athlete would expect to win an award for his first Little League game; no painter would expect to sell his first-ever painting.

Writers write and read. Keep at it until you're as good as you can be and then keep going.

The 50-Question/16-Solutions Writing Tools

Years ago, when I began teaching research writing, I realized that most of my students had little idea how to begin. I told them one of my favorite tricks, which is to make a big list of questions, 50 if you can, that you would like to answer for the reader. These could be factual questions (e.g., how many teenagers a year get pregnant) or questions that lead to in-depth discussion of ideas (e.g., what are the main reasons teenagers choose to keep their infants).

Once they had the list of questions, the writer could use it to guide research (find the answers) and then to begin writing (write the answers in full sentences and in context). By the time, she'd finished writing from the list, she'd have most of a rough draft although perhaps not in the final order. The idea works whether you're writing a term paper for a college class, an article for a magazine, or a non-fiction book. And you can keep a running list as you work on the document, crossing off answered questions and adding new ones you think of.

When I coach fiction writers, I often suggest a variation on the 50 questions called "16 solutions." If the writer is stuck on a plot point, I'll suggest he write out a list of 16 solutions: 16 things the character could do next, 16 things that could happen next, 16 people the character could meet. You get the idea. It breaks open the creativity.

Why 16/50 and not 20/45 or 12/55? I'm not sure if there's any magic in the number, other than that they are big. Our first few answers are always obvious. It's only when we get goofy, get creative, start thinking out of that box, that new ideas can come. My best solutions are often #12, 13, or 14.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.