The Best Thing to Do for Your Writing

The Best Thing to Do for Your Writing I saw this in a recent blog post, and when I eagerly delved into the piece, it instead listed items without weight to the suggestions. The blogger interviewed several authors and asked them what they considered to be the single most important item to do to improve your writing. I didnt see mine, and the others said things like pick the right POV, work on dialogue, take an acting class, respect plot. . . which might as well have been just an outline for a writing class. Of course what you take to heart as the most important thing might depend on what your strengths and weaknesses are, but to me, theres only one thing that encompasses novice and seasoned writers. Read and study good, published writing. Whats good? Well, that can be interpreted in several ways, but all must be contingent upon what you want for your own writing. 1) Do you want to sell books? Then read successful books that sold thousands of copies. 2) Do you want to write fantastic mysteries with great twists? Then read mysteries noted for such. 3) Do you want pulse-pounding romance that doesnt sound trite? Then seek strong romance writers. 4) Do you wish to complicate your plot? Find complicated plots. 5) Do you want dialogue that dances on the page and requires no tags to identify the characters? You know what to do. In other words, follow the masters. Some may say that means only bestsellers. Some say that neglects a lot of indie material. Nope. . . it doesnt, on both counts. Regardless of how its published, a book is good or it isnt. Sure, theres opinion laced in there, but when the majority of a books readers love it, and the reviews say why, then you have your markers, and who printed it doesnt matter. What about those books that arent known? Then my suggestion to the authors is to get them known. Is your writing truly remarkable? Then work on distribution and reviews. Do articles, interviews, and speaking engagements to demonstrate your abilities. Is it easy? Hell no. Its not supposed to be. It cant be. Good writing, and the good writer behind that writing, has to fight to be recognized. Whether thats going traditional and fighting to be embraced But I stand my mantra that the best way to improve your writing is to read good books. . . books that make you wish youd written them.