How to Become a Better Writer (in Four Easy Steps--Revised)

A friend asked my advice on how to become a better writer. The advice I gave him kind of follows the rules I used to become a better writer. I don't know if it's really all that helpful or profound or anything, but I thought I'd share it.

Four Steps to Becoming a Better Writer

1) Read. Read everything you can put your hands on. By reading millions of words, you are going to develop an understanding of storytelling, story structure, character development, and most importantly, the elements of writing. And the best part is that you won't even realize you are learning that stuff! You're learning by osmosis! (See? It's like sciencey stuff.)

2) Write. Do you remember the old joke--Q: "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" A: "Practice, practice, practice." The only way to learn how to play the piano is to practice. You've got to hit lots of bad notes before you become good. The same thing is true for writing: you've got to write a lot of crap before you get good. And believe me, you will write a lot of crap. I did. Hell, I still do. I always know that my first draft is going to suck. Period. Because ALL first drafts suck. It's a law of nature. But if you don't practice, you'll never get all the mistakes out and become a better writer.

3) Join a writing group or take a class. Sharing your writing with a supportive critique group will improve your writing. You don't want people who are just cheerleaders--if you want someone to tell you you're wonderful, go talk to your momma. If you're serious about writing, you want a group that is not afraid to tell you that your writing sucks. But you don't want them to stop there. You want them to tell you why is sucks and what they think would help you improve it. Then you have to decide what parts of their criticism you agree with and when they are full of it. Because ultimately, you are the writer. You control the destiny of your characters.

4) And the last bit of advice I'd give you is this: if you really do have wonderful, inventive, imaginative ideas and plots that sparkle and hum with life--if you have a really great story--you're going to do fine. Because the actual act of sitting down and writing is the easiest part of writing. The hardest part is coming up with the ideas that will sustain a story through 90,000 words. And after all, writing is about telling a story. So if you have the ideas, the rest can be fixed. It may take a half-dozen rewrites and months, or maybe even years, of careful editing. It may take having your group read it once, twice, three times or more. But remember: the ideas, the plot, the story--that's the hard part. The grammar, word choice, punctuation. All that's fixable.

So that's it, in a nutshell. My writing advice. I hope it's helpful. Keep writing, and write every day. Practice, practice, practice. That's the only way it to get to Carnegie Hall.