I was thinking today, and in my opinion, good writing can be broken down into four different things. These are the things that you need in order to write effectively.
Creativity, Experience, Style, and Grammar knowledge.
These four things can easily be broken down into smaller categories, such as character development (a mixture of Creativity and Experience) effective use of literary devices (style/experience). Layering a story so that it has all that it needs (beginning, middle, climax, resolution, ending, etc.) all of these things come with experience. Everything you need to write effectively is listed above, in my opinion.
Creativity:
In my opinion, creativity is the most important part of writing. If you don’t have the initial ideas, you don’t have anything to work with. And whether you start out with boring, ineffective characters, or a plot line with gaping holes in it, as long as you have a *start* then there is always something to work with. So even if you don’t have the greatest start to a story or a poem, and you post it and you get a hundred negative reviews, at least you started, and at least the ideas are there. And if you have the ideas, then you have something to work with. And if you have something to work with, you can learn the rest in time.
Experience:
Experience is something you gain (obviously). The easiest way to gain this, post! And even if the feedback you get isn’t good, listen to it. We all start somewhere, I know when I first posted something on here it was ripped to shreds! And now, I am thankful that it was, because I learned from it. The more you write, and post, and listen to feedback, the better your writing will become. Sometimes this process can take months, other times it can take years, but keep going. Keep reading, writing, posting, and improving as much and as often as you can. Because with this experience you gain the knowledge of what makes writing effective.
Style:
Style, to me, is a combination of literary devices, and that pleasant little taste of you. People constantly tell me about my weird commas, and how sometimes they seem oddly placed. However, the more I wrote, and the more I incorporated them into my fiction, the better I learned to use them. And though they may not always be technically grammatically correct, for the writing I do, they are typically effective. So how do you learn about style… experience! With experience and constant feedback, you *can* learn how to use these devices and things effectively. I know it, because I did.
Grammar:
To me, this is the easiest writing device to learn. Basic knowledge of proper grammar, spelling, etc, will help you far more than most people realize. And yes, with creative writing, sometimes it’s more acceptable to bend the rules, but never break them.
If you’re thinking of seriously becoming a writer, the first thing I suggest is doing a big brush up on your basic principles of writing, and use them to your advantage!
In my opinion, these are the three basic categories that good writing can be broken into. Let me know what you think!
