How Are Some People Naturally Good Writers Without Reading

March 08, 2022 Post a Comment

On the Myth that Writing Comes Naturally

I used to call back that writing came naturally to me. When I was in loftier school I won all sorts of awards for my writing. When I became an adult, those awards didn't stop coming, they just moved to the journalism sector. I was good at what I did. I didn't really have to work at it.

Fake.

While information technology might be truthful that some people come equipped with ameliorate skills — similar editing and grasp of language and vocabulary and spelling — the truth is this:

Our writing talent is directly related to how hard we piece of work at information technology.

When I was in journalism school, in order for any journalist to progress into the senior classes required for a degree, we all had to pass this examination chosen the GSP. GSP was an acronym for Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation. Everybody in my journalism classes talked about this examination similar information technology was something to be feared. I feared it, too. If you didn't pass this exam, you could pay to take it ii more than times. If you didn't laissez passer it those other two times, you would have to find another degree.

I made myself sick the night before this test. It wasn't really a exam I could written report for — mostly because I didn't really know how to written report for grammer and spelling and punctuation. It was too overwhelming. There were as well many variables. And so I didn't study. I went in and took my test and cried (I waited until I'd turned the test in), considering I thought I'd bombed it.

A few days afterwards, I got a call from my advisor, who told me he needed to encounter me. I thought for certain I'd failed the exam and would have to endeavor again. Merely when I got to my advisor's office, he had a huge, goofy smile on his confront. He told me I'd only missed one question on the exam — how to spell broccoli, which had always been a problem for me. Information technology was the highest grade they'd seen on the GSP.

I took this to mean that I must accept some innate talent. For the rest of that year, I sailed through all my writing intensive classes. I was a talented writer. I didn't accept to work every bit hard as all the others. I only had to put in minimal endeavour, and the blood-red rug of success would unfold itself for me.

Now that I'm older and, I'll just go ahead and say information technology, less cocky, I know that it was not innate talent I had. Sure, possibly I accept the ability to read words and know what they meant and call them up in mind-pictures when I needed to spell them correctly. Only the foundation for that ability was the stories that I read as a child.

I was ever reading stories. I studied words, without fifty-fifty knowing I was studying them. I was never without a book, anywhere. When y'all have a background like that, of course you're going to exist adept at spelling and grammar and punctuation and the mechanics of writing, because these are the intuitive things you pick upwards from books.

My 7-twelvemonth-sometime is not a swell speller. My solution for that? He needs to read more. He reads a lot. But he volition acquire how to spell past reading words on a folio.

I tell you all of this to say that we can oft go far this place as writers where nosotros believe that there is a finite corporeality of natural talent bachelor to us — nosotros either accept it or nosotros don't. It's not true. Some of us might have to work harder than others at things similar spelling and grammar, but every author grows her writing talent in proportion to how hard she works at it. Every writer can get talented — brilliant, even — if he is willing to work really hard at it.

I piece of work really difficult at writing. Every month, I read at least two writing craft books. I read at to the lowest degree vi novels, three of those ordinarily award winners, because I want to learn how to write similar that. At the end of every yr, I've read at least 120 books. At the stop of every year, I've written millions of words, because I evidence upwardly every day, no affair what I feel like or which kid ticked me off this forenoon or whether or non there's a coherent thought in my head. I do the work, all the way effectually.

We cannot just ride on our talent. Nosotros have to practice the piece of work. Nosotros have to study. Nosotros have to know ourselves and and so abound ourselves.

Talent plus work equals luminescence in the writing world.

Standing instruction matters — and I'm not talking about higher degrees. I have a available's degree. It's probably all I'll ever have, considering I take a husband and six kids and a writing career I beloved. Merely I put myself through a rigorous schoolhouse of my own. And that is what, in the terminate, volition ensure that I go the best writer I tin can maybe be. I have not arrived. I actually never will. Just the trying is what mattered in the first place.

We can all practice the aforementioned.

How to Continue Your Writing Education:

one. Read.

Read voraciously. Read widely. Read intentionally. When y'all think nigh college pedagogy–particularly college–y'all think most texts. Or at least I do. What kind of texts would I need to read and study get the equivalent of an MFA in young adult science fiction? What nearly middle grade fantasy? What nearly developed literary?

How do you report the books yous read? You mark passages, yous fold pages, you accept notes, fifty-fifty if it'due south a novel. Yous accept note of the passages or features you like. You effort to effigy out what information technology is that draws you in and keeps you reading.

My best communication to writers when information technology comes to reading is this: Read one poem a mean solar day, one brusk story a day, 1 essay a day, and one department of a novel a mean solar day. I know it'southward a lot. But how good do you want to exist?

2. Write.

Role of honing talent is practicing. And function of practicing is having a designated time, every day (I do five days a calendar week and leave the weekends open for inspiration) when y'all will work on your writing. Write essays or poetry or stories. Write all of them. Make it a regular part of you day, only like whatever other practice. And exist relentless about keeping your writing engagement.

3. Study resource.

There are and then many writing resource out there. I've read close to 100 writing craft books to engagement–and keep my educational activity with at to the lowest degree two every month. I take what I want from each book and, once finished, choice upwardly another. But don't just read writing books. Read business books and creativity books and books that volition assist yous polish and target your writing and then your audition will hear you.

Just don't ever end learning.

When we finish learning, we stop growing and improving.

Rachel is the author of the kid-lit fantasy series, Fairendale ; the poetry volume, This is How You Know ; and the Crash Examination Parents sense of humor series . She writes most writing on her blog This Author Life , contributes regularly to Huff Postal service and faithfully writes 5,000 words of fiction and nonfiction every solar day.