Radical Theory About How to Learn to Write Well and Become a Successful Writer
There’s no shortage of recommendations about how to become a successful writer, but following these suggestions could actually hinder your efforts to achieve your writing dreams. To learn how to write well, you must primarily focus on one thing. Read on to learn what that is.
What’s the secret to learning how to write well and to becoming successful?
This is the million-dollar question, right? It weighs down on us like an enormous, anxiety-producing, abstract concrete block. The secret seems hazy and changeable, dependent on a lot of luck, and above all else frustratingly difficult.
The standard answer to the question goes something like this:
You must work very, very, very hard, toiling away at writing with little hope of success.
Part of this working very, very, very hard involves a lot of schooling (a BA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing would be a start), participation in writers’ workshops, writers’ groups, writers’ retreats, and absorption of mountains of information from books on how to write well and even more books on how to market your writing by drafting effective queries with tantalizing teasers. The overriding assumption here is that all of this schooling and all of these groups and all of these books will teach—read that again, teach—you how to be a writer.
Seriously, though, it’s amazing that any of us even manage to scribble out a coherent sentence when the pressure is this great.
Is the standard advice even correct, though? In other words, if we follow it, will we become a great writer? Are the writers who followed it successful?
Successful writers are not successful because they followed the standard advice. Even if they have all the right training and all the right credentials, these are not the primary reasons for their success.
Good writers are successful because they trusted their inner sense. At some point, they decided to shut out the din of advice, recommendations, and “you need to do this and that and more of this and more of that” suggestions.
Indeed, I believe when writers follow all of the golden recommendations they will not be successful, and certainly will not write anything of worth, because they will be forever second guessing themselves and writing for an audience that is never satisfied.
The best advice I received about how to become a writer came from one of my English professors, from whom I learned the most about how to be an authentic person who trusts her own inner knowing—knowledge without which I would have nothing to say and would certainly not have anything worthwhile to write.
I asked this particular professor how I could learn to write. He didn’t respond right away; he just stared at me. I thought maybe he hadn’t understood what I was asking, so I rephrased my question, inquiring what classes he would recommend I take so that I could learn to be a writer. He finally responded with very simple advice that is the most profound recommendation I have ever received.
He said:
You learn to be a writer by reading. You don’t learn to be a writer by studying how to be a writer.
So how do you learn how to write? How do you become a successful writer with something worthwhile to say? I believe that you must be a lifelong reader of the work of great, enduring writers, for they are our best mentors. We must then distill the truth of the perspectives that resonate for us into our own authentic, meaningful, and worthwhile art.
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October 13th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Great Article =)
October 13th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Great post! Well written and great advice.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:39 am
This article was very informative, thank you.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Very helpful article, thanks
October 13th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I think reading with an open mind is necessary for the internal growth that complements creativity. At some point you just have to let the words flow…
October 13th, 2009 at 10:36 am
‘You learn to be a writer by reading’…..never a truer phrase said!
October 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Ha! Exactly what I was reading in a book, just yesterday. This is especially true for those who live in areas where using correct grammar isn’t usual, as is the case where I live. I always loved reading as a child and I know it helped me attain good grades in English – almost all the little I do know comes from observing the writing of others. Unfortunately my sons don’t enjoy reading anywhere near as much as I did (except if it’s Harry Potter, of course) so I have trouble getting them to read, although Lewis reads far more now he’s home-schooled. I’ve decided to devote at least an hour a day to reading, for precisely the reasons you’ve mentioned. Great advice.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Great Article.
I agree that formal education in English is heavily overrated, especially beyond the middle school level. It doesn’t matter how many classes one takes, there is no substitute for having a passion for reading. It’s easy from there to get a grasp of which words feel right in your head and which words don’t.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Nice article. My own opinion is that writing is a skill/talent like any other art form. You need to learn the fundamentals of English composition, but you can’t TEACH someone how to write. It’s all about being creative and having the ability to generate ideas and then transferring them to paper. The biggest problem is that people who have a talent for writing seldom get recognized or receive any reward.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Thank you for always writing useful articles!
October 13th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I had two profs at uni, one who hated my essays one that loved them, i would certainly agree with your comments about reading, good post.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I agree that a great education is not what makes a great writer; some of the greatest never graduated from high school! However, in a world where there is so much competition to be read, it does help that your nouns and verbs agree! In other words, to be taken seriously, correct basic grammar is a must, but one can’t teach creativity; you either have a gift or you don’t.
Practicing does help. I’m sure I’m a much better writer now than when I started writing online two and a half years ago; practice makes perfect.
Your professor was a wise man; reading opens new thinking, new ways of expressing by use of the written word.
Good article!
October 13th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Reading is certainly an important part of it. Maybe even the most important part of becoming a writing. Your professor was probably right. Then comes the writing. The reading is the fun, easy part.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
You are so correct. Writing has to be something you want to do. Great article!
October 13th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I think that advice certainly helps. Gotta be a wannabe to be a writer.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Being crazy helps.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Nice tip. Thanks.:-)
October 14th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Great article. Reading is crucial in becoming a good writer.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:43 am
so true.. great advice, thanks ^__^
October 15th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I agree with you that reading is the best way, and with Stephen that being crazy helps! I’ve always been an avid reader. I can recall every novel or short story that “spoke to me”, and so I strive to speak to others in my work.
January 9th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
He right we need to read more first,