One of my favorite quotes on writing was out of Sister Act 2, when Whoop Goldberg’s character, Sister Mary Clarence is lecturing one of her students about her love of singing.
Don’t ask me about being a writer. lf When you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing… then you’re a writer.
And while I love this quote, writing still needs practice. I know that had I not gone to school or spent as much time practicing my writing as I did, I wouldn’t be anywhere near the skill level I am now.
So how can you improve your writing skills? I came up with 5 ways on how to improve your writing skills.
What I will say before getting into any of these is to be patient with yourself. Practice is most important!
1. Write Everyday
Writing every day is the easiest way to improve your writing. Getting disciplined with writing every day, even if it’s just in a journal is excellent practice for improving your writing skills.
When you’re writing make sure you’re doing the following:
- Invoking all senses
- Write everything, even if it seems mundane
- Write for at least 30 minutes
- Write things that move you or your feel passionate about
- Find writing prompts online
- Try writing for other platforms
Doing a combination of these things daily will help you improve in no time. Writing what you see, smell, taste, hear, touch, and feel, will also be a valuable skill worth developing as you write every day.
I’ve found it incredibly useful to write about things in my life where I feel the strongest emotion. Doing this can even help with writer’s block. If you get everything you’re thinking out of your head and onto paper, you can make space for more creative ideas.
2. Take Some Writing Courses
If you feel like you have trouble with finding methods on how to improve your writing skills on your own or feel like you lack structure in your attempts to grow, a writing course may not be a bad idea.
There are tons of writing courses out there to choose from both free and paid.
You’ll find some great writing courses on these 4 main websites:
If you are looking for free courses, here is a huge list of free writing courses to choose from.
Most of these classes are put on by masters in writing and people who really know their stuff. When you start taking these courses and writing a lot, you start to develop your own writing style as a result, which is really exciting.
3. Read A Lot
As weird as this part is, reading a lot actually does improve your writing. Even the greats like Stephen King swear this is a huge part of becoming a good writer.
As humans, we learn by example, and if we are constantly reading books that we love and observing various writing styles, we pick up on those similar styles and adapt them to our own styles.
Literacy.org backs me up on this saying,
Reading exposes us to other styles, other voices, other forms, and other genres of writing. Importantly, it exposes us to writing that’s better than our own and helps us to improve. … Reading helps us make connections to our own experiences and emotions so reading makes you a better writer and a better communicator.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
For example, I love V.E. Schwab. She is excellent at describing things in detail and letting you in on what the character is thinking. Her kind of writing is the kind of writing I strive for in my novels.
Kristin Hannah, one of my favorite authors of all time, she is excellent at painting pictures as well and excellent at doing research to make sure her stories are incredibly life like in the historical fiction genre.
I will never be like V.E. Schwab or Kristin Hannah, obviously, but I know that I like their styles, and being that they are consider elite novelists, I can learn a great deal from their writing.
4. Join Some Workshops
Sometimes, we think our writing is really good when it’s really not. I’ve been there before, so I can attest to that. This is why writing workshops are so important for developing your writing.
When you hand over your stories or writings to others to review, you give others the chance to provide another perspective you might not think of. They will also be able to identify plot holes, places for elaboration, or clarity in parts that don’t quite make sense.
We can be too close to our own work sometimes and it never hurts to get a second opinion.
Not only that, getting feedback from people is healthy. It can teach us a lot about how to handle constructive criticism and negative feedback.
If you aren’t quite comfortable with workshops yet, you can try joining some Facebook groups where you can get feedback from thousands in the group.
Some of the best ones are:
I’ve gotten some great feedback in all of these groups when I needed a second opinion.
5. Don’t Give Up
Trying to be skilled at anything requires practice.
And sometimes, we practice so much and see what we think is little progress, that we actually believe it’s not worth the effort anymore. I’ve had countless moments in time when all of my writing efforts never got me anywhere.
It took me 7 years to get paid for my first article, and I was paid $75 for it. Not exactly the largest amount right? But back then, that was a huge amount for me!
Would I have made it to that point if I had given up? Absolutely not.
So if you want to be a professional writer, a novelist, or any kind of writer, don’t listen to everybody around you who tells you the writing field is difficult to get into. It will be hard if you believe it will be.
How to Improve Your Writing Skills? Just Keep Writing!
If you want to be a writer. Be a writer. Don’t stop writing. Find your niche. And get all your words out there. You will find various “how to improve your writing skills” blogs out there, and most of them will tell you the same thing. Keep writing.
And if people don’t believe you, I one hundred percent believe you can do it.
You never know how much your words will benefit others.
