Without the long intro that will get you yawning, here is a list that definitely will help you improve your writing skills:
Write EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Don’t excuse yourself. Write a minimum of one word, but don’t write nothing with the intend of the writing itself. So, no signing a letter doesn’t count. But ONE word can be a poem, a reference to more. It will help you tomorrow if you write even one day today. What is the effect? If you don’t have too much time, you are able to improve your ‘thought condencing’ abilities. Writing down only a couple of words will almost always fuel the brain to write more. The brain must be given little nudges of cookies to continue. When you sit in the train, bus or waiting on someone, write what you see, what you think or what you hear. It will start you thinking and tomorrow you do this again and suddenly after a couple of days, it becomes natural to write down just a little, then more.
Don’t limit yourself to types of writing.
Especially when you are a beginning writer, you will think you have it all laid out, you don’t need to improve your writing: This is what I want to write about…..but that is not the way your writing will develop itself. The creativity or consistency in writing comes from understanding when to write what in what form. Practice everything. Writing is painting with words. You can be an architect, you can be Rembrandt, you can be Picasso. They all had their style and they all took years to perfect it. Don’t think you should write only poems if you like that. Also write a story, if you have trouble doing so, extend your poem in the amount of lines (Check Shakespeare if you don’t know how), or write the poem and use it to write how you envision the subject of the poem lived or moved.
Rewrite!
Whatever you write at first, is not good. It is bad. You can always improve your writing. Why? Because it is the initial conversion of mind to word. It is always lacking, it is always a bit too much here, too little there. Look at your story, poem or anything after a week and write it again, from that initial writing but what you would change. Don’t hold back, the digital age gives you the possibility to keep every single version.
Write together.
As they say in some of the scenes RP/Roleplay. When you start writing, you often write from one perspective. That is great. A diary kind of story can do marvels, but often after several pages a reader might fall into a feeling that all characters are thinking the same thing….because you wrote it from one mind and will at some point write the story through all characters but from your mind only. Doing a roleplay will help you see things from others perspective. A roleplay generally goes like:
– writer one: Joe walks into a room, gun holstered. At the far end of the damp place he notices the other guy.
– writer two: Greg looks up from his drink. The light falling in from the doorway shows only a silhouette. Was it him? The hairs on the back of his neck rose up. Sweat started to form on his forhead.
…etc.
Let go!
When you finished a story, a poem, even a short or a piece of a scene that you don’t feel will be needed anymore. Put it out there for people to see. Show them what you do. Ask them to respond to it. Let people provide feedback. It will help you. Even the ‘Wow great’, ‘You call that writing?’
