Books to learn how to write better

[Erik_Twice]

I'm beginning to notice I'm hitting a wall when it comes to my writting skills. WHile they have greatly improved in the last year I'm beginning to notice it's all bland and stale, I use the same constructions over and over and you can even see it in this very post. Something to broaden my horizons would be great and I have to admit that most of my articles start terribly and end worse, only the middle part is any good compared to it

Tips?

[dsheinem]

Is there a particular kind of writing you want to do? My advice would generally be to read highly regarded works in the genre to get a sense of how the best writing is done. It's probably a more enjoyable experience than reading a manual...

[Luke]

Tips?

It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish, be it an increased vocabulary or sentence structure.

My advice would be to simply read... a lot. Find a wordsmith that you enjoy (I can't read enough of Roger Ebert's work) and keep reading away. That, and always keep a dictionary handy.

[Ivo]

I found this to be a good read:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/writing- ... ities.html
Check the other parts and references he mentions in those articles as well.

Ivo.

[Original_Name]

Original_Name here, enjoying the worst hiatus ever! Let me start by saying CONGRATULATIONS! You may find yourself frustrated now, but this is actually the most incredible time for a writer -- it's finally time to take off your training wheels!

My advice would be to start by breaking down your idea of what "good writing" is. I was considered to simply be a very competent writer until I started experimenting with the approaches of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Allen Ginsberg, E. E. Cummings, and Alan Moore, at which point I started having people use words like "gifted" to describe my work. My slogan in this regard has become "Communication is the key, the audience's minds are the doors," that is to say it is NOT about adhering to the classical rules of elegant prose so much as it is about finding the most effective ways at your disposal to get a message across "losslessly" (not letting the "rules" get in the way of conveying how the idea formulated in your own mind). Repetition, deliberately breaking rhythm, free-writing, simplistic vocabulary, elevated vocabulary, and working with visual elements (see E. E. Cummings) are all great tools at your disposal. The best way to convey emotion is to write a thing the way it feels, even if you're breaking "good rules of writing" in doing so.

In terms of relying on the same constructions in essays, I can't be sure if you're referring to the overall construction of the pieces you're writing or if you're referring to specific patterns of speech or turns of phrase that you find yourself utilizing repeatedly. For the former, I would consider the medium you're trying to work in. If you're writing strictly informative essays, you have to understand that the majority of your audience has come to expect a homogenized format for ease of digesting information -- it doesn't have to be monotonous, but this approach is generally considered the most "successful" way to write an informative essay. If it's meant to be entertaining, then here's my best advice...

Look at it like you're on a date.

Most people consider a "charming" person to be an individual whose personality stands strong on their own, but makes it a point not to be alienating. When you're on a date, you're striking a balance between being unique (so as to appear interesting) and being accommodating (so as to instill a sense of trust, and to put them in a place where they are most capable of seeing your best traits). When you're breaking off the tracks and writing simply as you feel, you put yourself in such a vulnerable position as a writer in that all of your emotional impact is enhanced, even if you're ultimately just trying to be funny. I point you to a passage about dropping jelly beans on pedestrians from "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" by Harlan Ellison:

Once more, in anticipation, the elfin grin spread, and there was a tooth missing back there on the left side. He dipped, skimmed, and swooped over them; and then, scrunching about on the air-boat, he released the holding pins that fastened shut the ends of the home-made pouring troughs that kept his cargo from dumping prematurely. And as he pulled the trough-pins, the air-boat slid over the factory workers and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of jelly beans cascaded down on the express strip.

Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin workers, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!

[...]

So the question remained: Who is the Harlequin?

But the unasked question (more important of the two) was: how did we get into this position, where a laughing, irresponsible japer of jabberwocky and jive could disrupt our entire economic and cultural life with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of jelly beans...

Jelly for God's sake beans! This is madness! Where did he get the money to buy a hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of jelly beans? (They knew it would have cost that much, because they had a team of Situation Analysts pulled off another assignment, and rushed to the sidewalk scene to sweep up and count the candies, and produce findings, which disrupted their schedules and threw their entire branch at least a day behind.) Jelly beans! Jelly... beans? Now wait a second - a second accounted for - no one has manufactured jelly beans for over a hundred years. Where did he get jelly beans?

That's another good question. More than likely it will never be answered to your complete satisfaction. But then, how many questions ever are?

Because Ellison is standing so unbelievably on his own when expressing the nature of the situation in such a way that is so direct and unfettered by conventions of the craft, the aspects of the piece which are pleasing to us seem all the more endearing. They are inseperable from Ellison himself. Harlan Ellison has made himself a very entertaining date -- BUT! he sets up a foundation first. He doesn't just peel out the gate with a recklessly constructed rave about jellybeans, there is more traditionally written material which precedes this, giving the passage stylistic context.

But know who you're dating! Know where the date stands! Know when to be formal and accommodating, and know when to kick your shoes off and cut a rug! What precisely that means to you will become more clear as you've spent some time with the training wheels off.

If you're finding yourself repeatedly phrasing things in similar ways, I suggest that you try and simply rebuild the phrase from the ground up. We use turns of phrase to shorthand complex concepts and feelings. So if you're sick of using phrases similar to "time and time again," for example, try throwing out the known shorthands and rewrite the thing the way it feels. If the sentence is "and the girl let out that annoying laugh time and time again," you could reimagine it as "and the girl let out that annoying laugh, racketing between the inner walls of my skull in an endless echo of itself, pulsing stronger still each time she unhatched her enormous mouth to unleash that shrill gobble to ravage my senses -- again, again, again it came -- like I was chained up under the conveyor belt at the Happy Acres Turkey Slaughtering House." See? That says "time and time again," just the same, but it details precisely what that means in this particular context.

As far as intros and outros, I would suggest paying attention to the way people introduce their stories in person. A great story often starts with, "Oh man, I have the best story!" or "Oh wow, you say ________, and that totally reminds of this one time that..." Start by focusing on elements that promise to make your topic exciting or that smoothly transition from a broader, relevant topic to the subtleties of your topic which expound upon the realities of that more universal idea. Stories typically end with "Y'see what I mean?" or "And that's why _______ will always remind of _______."

You mention that your middle part seems great, but the rest feels empty. This is the case for most writers -- it means that you enjoy the personal, story-telling part more than they other elements. Good intros tend to be a suggestion of what your exposition means, and good outros tend to be the absolution of that promise. Toy with starting off your pieces with anecdotes which apply to a nuanced, but fascinating element of your topic -- also try constructing outros which consider the potential for much broader ramifications of the details you have shared. In creative non-fiction, a typical example would go like this:

Intro: Here's one specific incident with my father which is charming, fascinating, and hints at the broader nature of our relationship.
Transition: This was one of many.
Body: A detailed account of the nature of your relationship with your father.
Transition: How this shaped who you are today.
Outro: How this applies to the nature of a good father in general.

--If you have anymore questions, or would like for me to rephrase my advice in a more technical fashion, I'd be happy to oblige. I'm not checking these forums with much frequency these days, so the response likely won't be immediate, but I'll gladly drop some hints when I can. Good to see everybody!

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Heya, it's another novelist! Good to have you. I've got a lot of the same problems you do - same sentence structures, same plot structures, lame intros that don't have much to do with the real story. The best medicine:

Revision! I'm not a very good writer, but I'm a pretty decent rewriter. Go over something five or six times, trimming the fat and adding what is necessary. It can be heartbreaking but if you stay true to the original vision it can only improve. I'm working on a novel that requires lyric beauty in the prose, focusing on a character who is harsh and cruel but also very emotive. Frankly I'm not there yet. Will not be there yet until I go over the plot again and rewrite it two or three times.

Go out of your way to study sentence structure, different kinds of phrases, etc. You might already know this, but it's always good to practice even when you do. When I write fast just to bang the plot out, I usually end up with a ton of simple, boring sentences. I did that, she went there, the waterfall was pretty, etc. Really bad, actually. I have to brush up on my grammar when I really start to get the style for my novel down.

I'll echo Original_Name's suggestion: Read lots of stuff! Classics can give you good ideas for thought patterns and attitudes that are out of date, as well as literary techniques and style that he oh-so-nicely pointed out. Think about how the author communicates with you as the reader, and once you know a lot of different approaches, you can take one or create your own. This is really difficult for me, but it improves my writing a lot.

I often don't have time to just read everything, especially with school, but writing novels takes a long time anyway. Stick with it!

One last thing: Always be observant. All the time. Inspiration can come from almost anywhere, and if you're like me you'd rather daydream about your characters than pay attention to your uncles talking about insurance and hunting stories - but those stories might be just what you need for your story! I really started improving once I began doing this.

[Michi]

I'll echo what Valkyrie-Favor and Original_Name said: Read a lot and revise, revise, revise.

If you're anything like me, than you have a lot of ideas in your head and you want to get them onto paper or a computer screen as quickly as possible. Nothing wrong with that. But after you get to a good spot, stop, and go over it. Then go over it again. And again. And again. I find that helps me the most. I too tend to repeat certain words/phrases too much, so by going over it it helps me to weed stuff like that out. I used to repeat myself a lot, actually, but I've noticed that I don't do it as often now, so I hope that means I'm getting a little better. Truthfully, I think I enjoy going over things and re-writing more than I do putting the original pen to paper.

Oh, and a thesaurus. Along with the dictionary always have a thesaurus.




I guess now we need a Racketboy Writer's thread

[BoringSupreez]

I want to write gooder too but I'm too lazy to practice and besides I'm no good at thinking up good stories anyway so I won't bother.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

^^Bait?

If you want to write, man, do it. We're not special. We're not even particularly good at it. You just need some practice and the motivation to keep going.

Oh, yeh. Less helpful, but a while ago I made these. Mostly ripped on a textbook, I added a page worth of stuff. This is meant to be printed out double-sided and put in a binder somewhere if there's your style. It'll help you stay consistent and organized which is important when you're as scatterbrained as I am. Even if you're past this stage, they're nice for starting a new project. Don't be afraid I have a ton these!

Quick character reference sheet!

[Erik_Twice]

Hey, thanks for all the responses! I have been brainstorming for a while and thinking about the topic.

First of all, I fucking need a synonym/antonym dictionary, for English at least and a Thesaurus. It seems that the main cause of my rote writting is that I tend to use the same words so soon everything becomes stale because there's very little you can do with the same handful of words.

Any suggestions welcome on this, I'm willing to get a good book here that will last me forever.

Is there a particular kind of writing you want to do? My advice would generally be to read highly regarded works in the genre to get a sense of how the best writing is done. It's probably a more enjoyable experience than reading a manual...

So far I'm mainly concerned with opinion pieces. Fiction can wait, my writting is far above other skills for that one so it isn't a priority.

it is NOT about adhering to the classical rules of elegant prose so much as it is about finding the most effective ways at your disposal to get a message across "losslessly"

I couldn't agree more. I think rules have the same advantages and pitfalls as a scientific theory. A theory doesn't give you more data, it just explains it so if your data pool is small you will be stuck with something that kind of looks right at first glance but really has more nuance. Newtonian physics come to mind.

A more specific example. In many cartoons boxes and buildings defy the rules of perspective. But that's because such rules are a specific aplication of other, more universal but also more abstract, rules.

I think that each time you discover a bigger, more powerful rule your quality tends to sink as you can't follow the invalid ones but you are not still skilled in the new way of thinking and often you can't understand a powerful rule until you have understood the lesser ones.

I can't be sure if you're referring to the overall construction of the pieces you're writing or if you're referring to specific patterns of speech or turns of phrase that you find yourself utilizing repeatedly.

Mainly the latter but what seems to irk me of the former is that I can tell there's nothing interesting being said, something that looks fine but is a cheap trick.

In one of my reviews, I start with a story of me being dissapointed with anime because after watching golden age cartoons everything looked poorly animated. It looks great, it's decently written for what it is but there's very little information in that paragraph. It may fool your average Joe (it surely impressed a friend) but many are able to tell. Making those introduction meaningful is one of my biggest goals.

But after you get to a good spot, stop, and go over it. Then go over it again. And again. And again. I find that helps me the most.

Something I confirmed yesterday is that I shouldn't change, I should rewrite as in write again from scratch. Small changes are easily done when I type the article on the computer but structural problems or lame writting aren't solved without a full rewrite.

For example, my latest article was originally more than twice as long (ha, the puns!) and suffered badly from a meaningless rant in the middle. I was being close-minded and trying to "fix" it when it obviously needed a full rewrite that distilled it.

I have also found it helps with my studies. (In fact one of the reasons I like blogging is that it helps me with my consistency issues)


There are also two things I'm increasingly being aware of:

1) You need to have a lot of influences. If you don't have many, what you do will be stale. Influences help your abstraction skills because you see the same thing done very differently.

2) There's very little talent, everything is a skill. You can train imagination as any other thing.

Thanks a lot guys! And yes, we need a "Writer's thread" XD