What is the biggest problem when first putting pencil to paper or fingers to keys? Well, I suppose it varies from person to person, but if one is making their writing effort with the hope of having it read by more people than themselves, friends, and family, two of the biggest problems, I suspect would be; fear of rejection and discouragement. In a nutshell, this fear is the sense that the writing that has been put down in physical words is not good enough.
I would like to counter with a bit of encouragement; The physical words that were written probably won’t be good enough. “What kind of encouragement is that?” You ask. Think about it this way. What if a person who never swam a stoke in their life thinks to themselves, “Well, I have seen other people swim. It’s just moving your arms and legs against the water. Of course, I can do that.” Then, they promptly jump in the deep end. Odds are, lack of practice will cause them to sink. That person would have to have an innate ability to swim if they are to succeed in keeping their head above water. Even with that innate ability they, probably, wouldn’t do a very skilled job.
At risk of sounding like a scratched record, writing is a skill, one must practice to become better at it. Therefore, there is little reason to expect great works right away. First, there must be, quite possibly, bad writing, after that, not horrible, decent, better, good, and so forth. This process takes time.
I remember when I first started writing. I didn’t have many misgivings about my writing quality. The things I wrote weren’t for the public; just me. It was later, after I had written for a while and started to improve, that I looked back and saw just how awful those first efforts were.
My eyes had been opened a little and I started to realize, even if my writing was for me only, I still wanted to have better quality when I read over the stories again. That was when I decided to start putting more effort into reading books on how to write, style, grammar, and so on.
Some people might find it difficult to learn how to write books by reading books, however, it will help, even if only a little, even if it is only for ideas here and there that will begin to show up in their own writing.
There is also a benefit in looking for books you enjoy reading, then analyzing what makes each of them so appealing. Comparing multiple such books by varying authors would be a good idea in order to discover what different people do to make an interesting story; whether they use different tactics or similar tactics. Learn from those who have gone before. If you learn from the mistake of others, you don’t have to make the same mistakes yourself.
This, of course, does not mean you should become a mimic. A personal voice makes a good story. Why would someone read an imitation of an author’s work if they can read that author’s original work?
These steps that I have mentioned are not meant to take the place of your writing, or to put your writing on hold. Practice writing as often as you reasonably can. This will help you to incorporate what you have learned into your writing and make it your own. Neither should this discourage you from testing yourself. Just because you can’t swim in the deep end of the pool right now doesn’t mean that you won’t get there, but you must work at it or you will likely flounder. If, in the course of learning, you get beyond your depth and you do flounder, remember that there is no reason to despair. Simply take a step back, learn from the experience, fix what went awry, and become a better writer from it.
To wrap this up, the writer must attempt to learn from the knowledge of others without losing their own unique style and voice, nor must they let themselves get discouraged because their work is not what they had hoped as of yet. Skills take time to learn. Enjoy the journey.
If you enjoyed this post, please, share this site with others, and like this page. If you want to receive further posts directly to your email before they are posted on my site, subscribe. Feel free to leave a comment or make use of the Contact page.