Becoming a Better Writer

How do we improve as writers?

As a writer you've probably gone through several cycles. At some points you were impressed, or at least liked your own writing. At others, you wondered what made you ever think you could write because of how bad your writing was.

These are natural cycles, and fortunately they mirror (to some degree) the learning process. That means you will naturally learn just by writing. But just writing isn't all that's needed.

When we learn, we need to be both humble enough to recognize our weaknesses and confident enough to use our skills. We will always be at some level between where we want to be and where we once were. If this all sounds a bit confusing, let me try to clarify.

To become a better writer, you will need at least two steps:

1. Learn writing skills.
2. Practice writing skills.

But these steps are not the kind you leave behind. You need to jump back and forth between the two, or to use an analogy, you need two legs to climb a ladder. Which is a useful analogy because one of the developmental psychology principles at work here is called scaffolding. It works because I said ladder and scaffolding uses ladders to...never mind.

When you learn writing skills, there are only certain concepts within your grasp. When your teacher in third grade said, "You should always use adverbs that end in -ly. They really help your story." She (or he) was right. For most third graders, -ly adverbs will increase their ability to express ideas. How did the boy go into the room? Sneakily. Hurriedly. Noisily. If you've ever read elementary school papers, anything to help the kids express themselves is an improvement. The 3rd grade you starts plopping -ly adverbs into every sentence possible.

Cut to a writing group 15 years later and your group members are saying things like, "Do a word search for -ly adverbs and delete them. They're terrible and you should never use them." You immediately cut -ly adverbs out of your writing vocabulary.

Cut to 5 years later and you have a new realization. Was your 3rd grade teacher wrong? No. -ly adverbs do have a place in writing. What your writing group is probably trying to say (whether they know it or not) is that -ly adverbs incompletely, though concisely, express how an action is done, but they don't draw your readers into the scene. -ly adverbs compress the action of the story into a single word. Instead of letting the reader experience the boy loudly walking into the room, you are simply conveying information. Now you are wary of using -ly adverbs, but you recognize that there are times where they are appropriate.

At each stage of your development, you took the information as you could and applied it. You were humble enough to make a change in your habits. Then you went forward and applied that change. Only after you applied that change could you even understand the next stage. You must have experience to build on.

But how do we use this knowledge?

To grow as a writer, you've got to write, then learn more about writing, then write some more, get feedback and be humble enough to recognize your weaknesses, and then write some more. Luckily, it is simple enough to break down into three continuous steps:

1. Write - Be confident in your current abilities. Write as well as you can, knowing that you're still improving but you're doing your best.
2. Get feedback - Share your writing. Listen to people who love it, hate it, don't understand it. Writing is communication. It's important to know how well your message is getting through to your audience.
3. Learn about writing - Read blogs, attend conferences, take classes, study books. There are many people in the world who are better than you. If you want to become their peers or surpass them then you need to hear what they say about writing.

It's easy to neglect one of these steps. Don't give in. Keep writing. Keep learning. Be humble, and be confident.