How Do You Actually Become A Better Writer?
Part 1: The Setup
There are better answers than “read and write more” — here’s just 1
A question that’s been on my mind lately is, how do you actually become a better writer?
Whenever this question is asked the same answer appears- read a lot, then try writing something. That feels like an easy, cheap answer.
Writing is art, and so I’ve been framing my answers in terms of other art forms. If you ask “how do I become a classical musician?” The answer isn’t “listen to a lot of Bach and Beethoven, then try and write a symphony.” If I want to know how to become a painter, no one is going to tell me to visit a lot of museums and I’ll be ready for my blue period.
So what is the writing equivalent to running scales for hours on end, to sketching a hand 327 times? It’s a hard question, because there is no exact translation. Filling an entire notebook with the quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog won’t get you anything except possibly committed.
Now, every art form moves at its own pace. In music, you might spend years playing other artists work before you ever try and create something of your own; in theatre, it might be your entire career. In drawing or painting you’ll move a little faster but you’ll still spend time tracing, copying sketches, and eventually full works of art.
If the examples above of a symphony or a whole body of visual art are comparable to a novel (or even a series) then a scene, or short story, or poem, might be better places to start. But even these are like creating a unique song or drawing; we’re still missing a critical step of practice.
While writing will always require the most willingness to leap before you have any idea what’s at the bottom of the cliff, there is more we can do here.
And that missing step is emulation. More than emulation: embodying. Try to become another writer, copy their work, and learn, at a cellular level, what they are doing. If that sounds like a lot of work- sorry, it is. Like most things, there’s no magic bullet answer here.
But it’s no more work than any other student of the arts is doing. It’s simply studying a song one note at a time, or understanding why Picasso used that particular brushstroke. We all understand the work that goes into mastering those art forms- why have we decided that writing is any different?
And that’s all well and good you say (except for those of you saying it’s utter hogwash) but what the heck does it mean? What does that actually look like?
Well I’m glad I asked! It looks a little something like this…
