This new, on-going series on what it means to write and how to become a more effective writer aims to help you, the average Steemit user, to improve your own skills and abilities. Whether you're an aspiring fiction author or you just want to improve your blogging skills, I'll be sharing what I've learned across an entire career of education and practice.
from Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille
If you’ve got young kids – or if you’re a kid at heart - you probably enjoy watching Disney films. Many of Disney's more modern movies resonate with kids and adults alike, thanks to their positive messages: Mulan is all about female empowerment, The Incredibles is all about the virtue of being different, and Beauty and the Beast is all about seeing the value of who a person is on the inside rather than what they look on the outside.
Still, one of my favorite Disney movies is Ratatouille, the story of Remy, a common rat with a love of food who becomes a gourmet chef, simply because he believes in himself and never gives up on his dream. Remy – with the help of the friends he makes on his journey – proves that anyone can cook.
So what does this have to do with writing? Well, just about everything.
How Cooking is Like Writing
Say what you want, but Denny's makes some damn tasty omelets.
Writing, like cooking, is a skill that combines both art and technique. Cooking is the art of applied chemistry when it comes to food; writing is the art of applied psychology when it comes to people. Making a healthy, tasty omelet for breakfast that fills you up and makes you feel good is the same as writing a post on Steemit that fills readers with emotion and makes them feel good. And, just like any omelet, a good Steemit post is made from ingredients that are put together in the right proportions and then prepared in a way to produce something worth consuming.
Just like how making a good omelet is more than cracking a few eggs into a skillet, producing good writing is more than just vomiting out whatever thoughts you have in your head into a text box. It takes an understanding of the fundamentals of cooking to not ending up with undercooked or burnt eggs; it takes an understanding the fundamentals of writing to produce good content. On top of that, it takes lots of practice – both in cooking and in writing – before you can produce something that is delicious and a joy to consume.
The good news is that anyone can cook: in both cases anyone can learn these fundamentals and perfect their skills through practice. When it comes to writing, you’ve got to hone your abilities over time.
A Slow Process
Tick tick tick! Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
The ability to write is the one skill that will improve even if you don’t do anything. The more you experience in your life, the better your ability to spin stories and tell tales; you’re a better writer today than you were ten years ago, and you’ll be even better than you are now another ten years down the line.
Of course, not everybody wants to wait decades for their writing skills to develop. The other way you can become a better writer is through study and practice. There’s an old theory, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, that if you practice any skill for around 10,000 hours you’ll become a master, regardless of whatever raw talent you might have started with. This is true for practically anything from programming to philosophy.
Practice Makes Progress
So what does study and practice mean for a writer? Primarily, this means writing. Whether you’re a journalist, a blogger, a fiction writer, or even someone who likes to scribble dirty limericks on bathroom walls, the more you practice the better you’ll get.
At the same time, there are some important things to keep in mind so that you’re not making things harder for yourself. While any practice has its benefit, learning and practicing certain writing methods are going to result in slower progress.
The Parable of the Guitar
Image from MyGuitarTeacher.net
Imagine you decide to start teaching yourself guitar as a teenager. You get yourself a six-string and a book of your favorite songs, and you just muddle through. At first your fingers hurt from trying to make chords until you toughen up. You start developing muscle memory and soon you don’t have to look down at your hand to see if you’re hitting the right strings to make a particular chord. Eventually you get good enough that you can play a few songs, clumsily at first but eventually with enough proficiency that you actually sound pretty good. This takes you months, maybe even years.
Now, imagine you did more than just buy a guitar and a couple of songbooks. Let’s say you also watched a whole bunch of YouTube videos on learning how to play guitar, learning the best way to position your fingers on the frets and how to strum or finger-pick with precision. Eventually you start taking in-person lessons with an instructor down at the local music store. Soon you’ll find that you get just as good as you would have teaching yourself, but guess what – you get there in half the time.
That’s exactly why studying the mechanics of writing is just as important as practicing. You’ll get better, faster, if you get some outside guidance, even if it’s the equivalent of watching YouTube videos until 2 in the morning.
Different Paths to the Same Goal
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood... Image courtesy Flickr
So what constitutes study when it comes to writing? It can take any number of forms:
- Reading constantly: the truth is that the more you read, the more writing you’re exposed to – and that provides a multitude of examples, good and bad, to help you learn about writing organically. Even if you don’t have a formal grasp of mechanics, you’ll begin to intuitively understand what distinguishes good writing from bad. Even if you exclusively read books or content from just one or two authors, you’ll watch how their own ability to write develops as they grow as a writer themselves, which serves as an excellent example of how practice makes progress. Even reading reviews other people write about certain books can help you develop, as you’ll gain insight into how other people feel about the same book you’ve read, which can help you verbalize your own unformed ideas and responses to whatever it is you’re reading.
- Talking about what you read: whether it’s among friends over coffee, at a library book club, or in the comments section online, the more you discuss your thoughts and feelings with others about something you’ve read, the more knowledge you’ll accumulate that you can then translate into better writing ability. Being able to express what you like – and what you dislike – about a certain novel or short story helps you understand what works and what doesn’t, and throwing things back and forth with others exposes you to different viewpoints that you might not have considered or that you missed the first time you read something – much in the same way that reading a book review can help you in a solitary environment.
- Formal study: sitting down in a classroom and learning from an expert might sound strange, considering how writing is a creative, artistic endeavor that’s highly subjective, but it’s one of the best ways to learn the kinds of techniques that you can apply, again and again, to writing in the future. The guidance of an expert in any activity that combines art and technique – fine art, acting, cooking, performing, and, yes, writing – is going result in improving your ability, and the assignments in any writing class will involve you reading others' work and discussing it with your teacher and your classmates alongside our own work.
Most people will focus on the first two, as it’s hard to find the time, money, and inclination for formal study. However, I’ve got the most experience with this method and it’s something I’ll be sharing in our next installment so you can skip the tuition fees. I’m also providing it for free, so just keep in mind that you get what you pay for.