How to become a better writer? You may be surprised by the answer.
21 Tuesday Jun 2011
Written by Charles Harris in Psychology
HOW TO BECOME A BETTER WRITER
They all say practice makes perfect. But does it help you become a better writer? Maybe there’s another issue here that you need to address if you are going to succeed.
The Guardian’s Matthew Syed has written an article How practice does make perfect which gives a number of examples of studies from General Electric to Stanford University. They all show that sticking to the job is one of the best ways to improve performance.
But hold on: surely it’s also a matter of what we practice, and how?
I could spend 100,000 hours trying to put up a shelf and never succeed. Why? Because I need someone to show me how. Practising the wrong way to do something will just get me really good at doing it wrong.
Practice doesn’t make perfect – it makes permanent.
Many writers keep making the same mistake over and over again, because nobody told them any better. Or suggested a more useful way to learn.
Perfect practice makes perfect.
Here’s some random suggestions for better practising. These exercises take you outside your script to give you a new perspective:
- Read a script, novel or short story. Take a scene from it and copy its shape and structure exactly but in your own words, with your own characters and situation.
- Go somewhere. Set a scene in this real location, then bring in an invented character and see how they interact with the environment.
- Describe a real person you know very well, and put them in a totally fictional setting.
- Write a line of dialogue. Write a response (or lack of one). Keep on going. Watch what appears.
- Now take all that dialogue and see how much you can convey by cutting it out and creating visuals instead.
- Do the reverse: create a sequence of visuals, then see what happens if you try to convey the same story solely through dialogue.
So, don’t just slog away at that script. The quality of your practice is as important as the length. Step away from time to time. Get good advice and good tuition. And find some fun ways to keep fresh and sharpen your game.
Perfect.
4 Comments
June 22, 2011 at 10:04 am
I’m sure it’s the same for Wayne Rooney in YOUR type of football as it is for great players in MY type of football and all other sports in the US, the UK, and wherever. A good coach is invaluable in helping you practice smarter. And players like Rooney are probably better able to distinguish the good coaches from the borderline idiots. There’s another important point that you kinda hint at, and most kids trying to be athletes understand this instinctively. A great way to learn is to imitate those you admire. Find a screenwriter you like and try to write the way he does. Or at least find a movie you like, hunt down the screenplay, and try to imitate it. Slavishly? Doesn’t matter. You’re putting yourself in the screenplay/screenwriter’s mindset. And eventually you’ll sort out what you can use and what you can’t.
Cheers,
Joe, New York
January 2, 2021 at 5:56 pm
Thank you, Joseph. I agree. Imitation is underrated as a way to learn. Did you know that the great Arthur Miller started off writing out Shakespeare plays, word for word, to see how they worked?
January 2, 2021 at 12:52 pm
Great advise. Currently reading a film script, and will use this exercise. Using the technique of replacing dialogue with visuals is an interesting idea. Would you suggest using a recent film script, rather than one produced in 1997?
January 2, 2021 at 5:57 pm
Good question. I’d use any script that excites you, whenever it was written. The excitement is the most important part.