Before you throw a tizzy fit, please listen: you are not going to become a better writer simply by continuing to write. It just isn’t going to happen. It’s like hoping you’re going to be chosen for the all-star basketball team even though your aim is all wrong and you refuse to listen to the coaches and other players who could help you improve your game. If you don’t listen to those people, it doesn’t matter how many times you shoot the basketball. You’re never going to make more than a few baskets.
So, too, goes it with writing. You can write every day, all day. It isn’t going to do you any good if you don’t pay attention to your craft. You’re simply going to make the same mistakes over and over again until those mistakes become habits, and habits are very hard things to break.
If you truly want to become a better writer, you will have to do the hard work of the writer. You’re going to have to work on the mechanics; that is, if you struggle with the comma or the semi-colon or any other punctuation mark, you spend time learning about them. You work with someone who does understand how they work. If you have a tendency to begin every paragraph with an introductory word or phrase, you work on breaking yourself of the habit. If your issue is a preponderance of adjectives and adverbs, you work on using concrete nouns and verbs. If your characters aren’t quite coming to life or your dialogue is stilted, you go and study authors who are known for lively characters and dialogue.
It is those things that will help you become a better writer. It isn’t writing alone just as it isn’t shooting basket after basket. It’s studying your work and the work of others and making yourself teachable and bringing those things to bear each and every time you write.
Image: Jason Michael (Creative Commons)
[…] posits that people who want to become better writers may need to quit writing, advice opposite the traditional “keep writing” mantra. She encourages a consistent writing […]