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Basic Ideas for Better Writing

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The oth­er day I was doing a ZOOM vis­it with a class of sev­enth graders. At the end of the class, the teacher asked me to sug­gest some basic ideas for stu­dents who want­ed to learn—or do better—writing. 

I’ll give it a try. 

There are good teach­ers of writ­ing, but I do not con­sid­er myself one of them. I can only sug­gest some ideas based on my own expe­ri­ence that might be of help to young writ­ers. Still, when it comes to art—and writ­ing is an art—I believe there are no rules: only results. 

Just because, in the­o­ry, every­one is taught to write. Not every­one is a writer. 

So, you can ignore what fol­lows and cre­ate your own rules. 

Beyond all else, I think writ­ing is about read­ing.  My own mantra is, “Writ­ers don’t write read­ing. They write read­ing.” So, to become a writer you have to read. Could you write music, with­out lis­ten­ing to it? I doubt it. My own con­clu­sion: the more you read the bet­ter the writer you can become. 

Read­ing also teach­es you to think in nar­ra­tive ways. That is, it will teach you to see the world as a story. 

Writ­ing is, beyond all else, for the read­er. Jour­nals, diaries are, if you will, let­ters to your­self. Young writ­ers often say, “But I under­stand it.”  True enough, but one needs to make a read­er under­stand what has been written. 

Write what you have read and enjoyed. Your crit­i­cal facil­i­ties are already tuned if you write what you have enjoyed. Want to write fan­ta­sy? Read fan­ta­sy. Nev­er read mys­ter­ies? Don’t try to write one. 

Young writ­ers often believe that hav­ing writ­ten some­thing once it’s done. But most good writ­ing comes about because of re-writ­ing. I recent­ly read about a writer who said he spends day one writ­ing ten pages, and day two cut­ting sev­en pages. Makes sense to me. 

I have no idea how often I rewrite my books. Six­ty, sev­en­ty, eighty times. I  go for­ward and back­ward. Natal­ie Bab­bitt once told me she couldn’t start a book until she knew the last line.  I’ve heard writ­ers say they can’t write a book unless they come up with a good first line. I know I may sud­den­ly think of some­thing in a para­graph on page 65 and go back and re-write it.  A nov­el is all of one piece. Every line is about all the lines. All are con­nect­ed. If it doesn’t con­nect, cut it. 

The essen­tial ener­gy in any piece of writ­ing is emo­tion.  Emo­tion is the glue that holds the read­er to the text. The writer Paula Fox once said, “A lie hides the truth. A sto­ry tries to find it.” 

The great­est sin in writ­ing: boredom. 

Avoid talk­ing about what you are writ­ing. Talk­ing is talk­ing. Sto­ry­telling is sto­ry­telling. Writ­ing is writ­ing. If it’s not writ­ten down it has not been written. 

When you have com­posed some­thing you think is good, don’t give it to some­one to read.  Ask them if you can read it aloud. That turns you into a read­er. You can hear what is good and not so good. I recall (I think) Stephen King sug­gest­ing that you can’t real­ly get to know a writer until you lis­ten to his/her work. That’s true for your own writing. 

Lis­ten to crit­i­cism, but nev­er argue back. If one per­son says “X” you can ignore it. But if ten peo­ple say that same “X” you had bet­ter pay attention. 

I agree with what the British author G.B. Shaw once said: “Hard writ­ing makes for easy reading.” 

Final­ly, don’t try to be an author. Try to be a writer. 

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