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Tips to improve my writing? |
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Kevin 
General 
AE Editor Joined: 27-Apr-2007 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 767 |
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 Topic: Tips to improve my writing?Posted: 17-May-2008 at 03:38 |
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I'm looking for tips on how to improve the flexibility and creativity of my writing?
Anybody have any suggestions? Thank you! |
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hugoestr
Tsar 
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 04:03 |
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Read, read, read. Practice, practice, practice. The more you write the better you get.(Although I may be a counter example to that
 )
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Julius Augustus
Earl 
Joined: 20-Mar-2008 Location: Tajikistan Online Status: Offline Posts: 274 |
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 05:36 |
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Edgar Allen Poe wrote his best stuff while he was drunk, might work as well. kidding aside, hugo is right, read, read, read and practice.
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Frederick Roger
Colonel 
Joined: 09-Jan-2005 Location: Portugal Online Status: Offline Posts: 658 |
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 10:24 |
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I would have to go with the two posts above me. Seems to work pretty good.
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Styrbiorn
Caliph 
Joined: 04-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2810 |
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 11:10 |
This is how you do it. Emphasive bolding mine. Edited by Styrbiorn - 17-May-2008 at 11:11 |
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Omar al Hashim
King 
Suspended Joined: 05-Jan-2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5697 |
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 11:32 |
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Disagree. You must read good writing in order to improve your writing. Perfect practice makes perfect. Practice may just entrench bad habits.
Its no good reading sentences like this: Wat u e8ing 4 lucnh Im havin fish |
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Zagros
Emperor 
Suspended Joined: 11-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 8792 |
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 12:15 |
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Kevin, there are workshops you can attend that give you hints and tips. My sister and I tried to get into one at last year's Edinburgh festival but they were always fully booked.
Over the last two years the creative edge in my writing has kind of waned and it's not for lack of practice... In fact I have read more in the last two years than the rest of my life... and as for writing: I have written about 90,000 words of assessed material over the last 8 months. The problem is that it's all been boring academic BS (for the most part). So I have to agree with Omar. If you wish to improve your creative writing read creative books: I recommend Pratchet's Discworld series in addition to certain classics such as 1001 nights (which has some amazingly creative stories in it which really make you think). |
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hugoestr
Tsar
Suspended Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3987 |
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 17:07 |
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Hi, Omar,
I thought so as well, but I actually have seen how poor writers became better just by practicing; dramatically better, in fact. My wife used to print her posts out so that we could both be amazed at how poorly she could express herself. After about 6 months, I saw her writing again, and I was shocked on how much better her writing was. Think about it as a playing chess. The most important thing to do at the beginning is to see samples of good playing and play a lot. Trying to play perfectly from the start only sets people out for failure. Instead, it is better to practice a lot, focusing on improving one single thing at a time. Once we get the hang of that skill, then move on to the next. This is how world chess players are educated 
Perfection comes from practice. |
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Guests
Guest 
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Posted: 17-May-2008 at 17:54 |
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That's an example of a good point. Get your work critiqued. Feedback can help to fix bad habits and generally improve your writing. Set yourself deadlines, as pressure can really bring out some creative thinking. Get someone to set you specific writing challenges that force you to write outside your usual style or subject matter.
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Kevin
General
AE Editor Joined: 27-Apr-2007 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 767 |
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Posted: 18-May-2008 at 00:20 |
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I just feel my writing is too stiff you know?
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Zagros
Emperor
Suspended Joined: 11-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 8792 |
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Posted: 18-May-2008 at 03:51 |
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Yeah... I know! Try and find a workshop to get hints from people who do it for a living. Or try to find some online tips if that's not possible.
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Guests
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Posted: 18-May-2008 at 05:44 |
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When I write, creatively, I tend to focus strictly on the emotions I wish to evoke from the responder. I find that allows my writing to flow more naturally and people tend to deepen the characters within their own minds if they feel a strong emotional response. Perhaps it's a sad reflection on my personality, but I felt a strong sense of pride when I made my girlfriend cry with the sad tale of Armatus Dynam.
When I write formally I again attempt to focus on the desired response from the audience. You need to know your facts, of course, but you also need to present your facts in a manner that conveys the desired impression. This helps me to guide each point into the next, and the order in which points should be presented. |
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Guests
Guest
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Posted: 18-May-2008 at 18:27 |
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..hi there...
..when i first began writing up history, i generally found that just reading good history books helped to develop my own style....i learnt from other authors basically....
...however, one thing that did really help was to always have a good thesaurus handy...whenever i wrote my own pieces off the top of my head, i would often go back over the work and check words i had used in the thesaurus and see what other terms or alternatives could be used....it was not always the case that i found more suitable options but by regularly consulting the thesaurus, i became more aware of, and gained more knowledge of 'words' in general and how they could be incorporated into my own jottings...for example, only recently, i have found the word 'perforce' more adequate to use in some cirumstances than 'necessarily'...it certainly helped to provide a clarity to certain phrases and made some sentences less unwieldy....
...AoO....
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rider
Tsar
Suspended Joined: 09-Aug-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4664 |
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Posted: 18-May-2008 at 19:15 |
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Just writing should be enough.
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Efraz
Pretorian 
Joined: 23-Apr-2008 Location: Istanbul Online Status: Offline Posts: 151 |
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Posted: 18-May-2008 at 22:13 |
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What do you write?
Fiction for example? Or you want help for essays etc? I am a fiction writer and I know good books in that area. What are you looking for to improve? Your fiction technique? Or do you want an artistic improvement with words? |
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Omar al Hashim
King
Suspended Joined: 05-Jan-2006 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5697 |
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Posted: 19-May-2008 at 12:03 |
Sure, but you are talking about the writing and I about the reading. If you want to learn good chess, play against people who are better than you. Its no good if you play against people who are worse than you all the time. If you want to write well, you should read writers who write well. You probably won't be able to write as well as them first go sure. When you practice, you should practice to improve your habits, and you should know enough (through reading good writing) to know what is good and what is bad. If you don't read good writing, you won't know what is good and what is bad, so you won't know how to practice well. For example, practically everything I have written in the past 4 years has been an Engineering Report, while that improves my writing for technical reports, it doesn't improve it (possible even hinders it) for writing a novel. |
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Julius Augustus
Earl
Joined: 20-Mar-2008 Location: Tajikistan Online Status: Offline Posts: 274 |
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Posted: 19-May-2008 at 12:43 |
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another way to improve ones writing is to know the rules of writing. syntax formation, grammar and etc. that would help greatly, though great literary writers bypassed this, ie in the novel Ulysses.
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Justinian
Chieftain 
King of Númenor Joined: 11-Nov-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 1399 |
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Posted: 20-May-2008 at 03:00 |
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A helpful tip I read and have been using is to write down every word you come across when reading that you don't precisely know the meaning to. (even ones you do, if you have the time you have nothing to lose in being thorough) Look it up in a dictionary and record it, the advantage being at the end of the day or week you have a catalog of words you can slowly start adding to your vocabulary through review. (or if thats too intense, at the least you have a record of troublesome words that you can review at any time without having to remember what all the words were) With that, I've found reading the great works of literature is most effective in expanding ones vocabulary and helping one see the creativity of past "masters" and just what is possible.
Edit: Not to forget writing! As others have said the more you write, and write well, the better you will become. Though write within your means, if you are not comfortable writing like Byron, (or some other illustrious master of prose) don't. Learn from others, but mold them to fit your own, unique style. Edited by Justinian - 20-May-2008 at 03:04 |
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"War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."--Thomas Mann
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Akolouthos
Sultan 
Joined: 24-Feb-2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2091 |
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Posted: 20-May-2008 at 04:47 |
There are several ways to loosen up a stiff piece of writing. One of the best is a very dry use of gross understatement. Sometimes it helps to end a paragraph with a very short statement of fact -- such as the reaction of an individual to a historical event -- and then to begin the next paragraph with a very fast paced narrative of the actions that individual has taken. Self deprecating humour also has value, but in an academic context is a bit more difficult to pull off; footnotes can be ideal for this purpose. Footnotes are also valuable to include a humourous analysis of a particularly interesting fact -- often it helps to analyze an event from a modern context, and to feign shock or misunderstanding. The challenge with using any of these tactics is to ensure that they are obvious enough so as not to provoke criticism, but are not so obvious that they ruin the joke. Trying to make these things appear clever without making them appear to be contrived can be a real task.
Just a few tips that I use. Hope it helps. God bless, Kevin.
-Akolouthos Edited by Akolouthos - 20-May-2008 at 04:49 |
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Guests
Guest
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Posted: 20-May-2008 at 05:11 |
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Well, it depends on what do you want to write. And article is quite different to write than a fantastic tale or a romantic poem.
The important point, I believe, is that you should never forget though, that there is somebody reading you. You have to capture his/her attention and mantain the suspense while avoiding boring him/her. Edited by pinguin - 20-May-2008 at 05:12 |
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