To be an excellent writer, you can never rest on your laurels. You need to be constantly working on your craft, improving every day. This sounds like an insurmountable task, but actually it’s not too difficult at all. Here are 10 ways you can improve as a writer and create excellent work every day.
1. Read Every Day
This should go without saying, but every writer is a reader first. You should always be reading, whenever you have a spare moment. Read widely too, going outside of your preferred genre whenever possible. Everything you take in is fuel for your own creativity, so ensure that you’re reading as much as possible.
2. Shut Out Distractions
“Many people never even start writing as they’re so distracted with other things” says professional writer Katy Boson. “If you’re letting yourself get distracted, then you’ll never improve as a writer.” Make time every day for writing. Turn off your phone, shut off the internet, and just write. The more time you can devote to your writing, the better.
3. Work With Others
Writing can feel like a lonely pursuit, but it doesn’t have to be. You can meet up with other writers online, and start improving by sharing your writing with them. The Inkitt Community is a perfect place to share your work and get feedback from fellow authors. Sharing with others helps you get useful critiques of your work, which will help you improve your writing drastically.
5. Ignore Your Inner Editor
Many writers say it’s hard to write, as there’s the nagging doubt that what they’re writing isn’t good enough. That’s your ‘inner editor’, and you need to learn to ignore them. When you sit down to write, just focus on getting as much down on paper as you possibly can. Once the piece is finished, then you can go back with your red pen and make changes.
6. Look At Improving Your Grammar
Good grammar is the foundation of good writing. If you feel your grammar isn’t as good as it could be, now’s the time to look at improving it. You don’t have to go back to school, but you can take advantage of resources online that can help you out. Use the resources out there to ensure your writing is as good as it could be.
7. Dissect Your Favourite Authors
Not literally! However, it’s well worth looking at why you keep going back to the same genres or authors. What is it about that them really grabs you, and keeps you reading? You can print out a piece of writing, and start marking sections that you like. What is it about the words, turns of phrase, or style that speaks to you? You can start looking at how you can incorporate this into your own writing.
8. Create Outlines
There’s nothing worse for a writer than a blank page. It’s intimidating, and you just don’t know where to start. Stop this happening to you by creating an outline for everything you write. It can be as minimalist or as detailed as you like, but create an outline that shows you what should happen at every step of your story. This will help you beat the dreaded blank page and get started.
9. Take A Look At Your Older Work
When you feel as though you’re not improving, take a look at your older work. Many writer cringe when they do this, as they feel their older work just isn’t up to the standard they expect of themselves now. However, it’s a very good reminder that you have improved, and will continue to improve in the future.
10. Always Edit And Proofread
Finally, you must always ensure that you’re editing and proofreading your work. No writer will get it totally right on their first try, so check your work once you’ve written it.
These tips will help you improve as a writer every day. Take them to heart, and start writing with this purpose every day. You’ll see the improvement almost instantly in your writing.
5 Comments
Thanks for the great article, I found it interesting and very close to me. In fact, your items do not necessarily apply to the development of their skills exactly as a writer. I read the entire article very carefully and each time I stopped myself thinking that it could help me not only to write. Indeed, it turns out that in developing one direction of their skills, you are simultaneously mastering skills about which at first and did not guess. Thank you for your wonderful advice!
These are excellent recommendations for novice writers. Firstly, I would like everyone to consider writing as a craft, as it is. Very many people are mistaken. They are inclined to think that writing is a talent and that it does not need to be worked on. That everyone who has at least a share of talent can calmly write a wonderful article for 1000 words, not forcing himself into anything. But in fact writing is a big work. To start writing well, you need to constantly read, write, learn more and more new methods, read the recommendations of good authors. As you already mentioned in this article, it’s very good to work with other writers, so you can teach a lot to each other, which will lead to good results. And most importantly, when the day of the creative crisis comes, one should continue to write everything evenly, do not think that writers write only when they have inspiration or a good mood, in fact it is a big work, and you need to get used to this idea!
To your point, one of my favorite inspirational quotes is, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
This is a great article and great read for me. It’s my first visit to your blog, and I have found it so useful and informative especially this article.
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I absolutely agree! It’s really useful information for writers.