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Any ideas in helping to improve writing skills?

4 points by VicT11 ↗ HN
I really want to get better at writing. It's something I never really placed attention to or focus on during college, and now I'm really regretting it. I now recognize it as an essential skill that's much more difficult than I initially thought.

I've been thinking of ways of helping my creative writing. Obviously practice makes you better, but I wish I could contact someone qualified with a good background who can really help look over and give me very helpful critiques.

I've started a blog as well to help motivate me and increase my online presence, but too be honest I'm extremely hesitant and embarrassed to post because I'm not content with the quality of my work, and I don't feel I have good subject matter to write on.

I wanted to ask the HN community if they had any tips, advice, perspectives, or resources that might be worth looking into. I also figured I wasn't the only one who could benefit from some assistance.

Thanks!

12 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 34.5 ms ] thread
SamReidHughes
I don't know what I'm talking about, but keeping that in mind, you should consider the following attack strategy: write a lot, and write weird. For example, force yourself to avoid certain things when writing: avoid "I", avoid forms of "is". This is not a rule of How Writing Should Be Done, it's just an exercise, the same way that avoiding goto is an important exercise for novice programmers. I'm sure you could think of other options, like making each paragraph be comprised of one long sentence, or taking a second pass to your work and compressing it into as few words as possible, or picking a small set of words and abusively trying to work them in as much as possible. Maybe these tricks are no good but will just make writing more interesting so that you do it more.
VicT11
Being different helps in being better, so I think those are good tips. If not only for an exercise and experimentation to test out different styles.
struppi
I have not read it myself (yet), but Garr Reynolds (http://www.presentationzen.com/) recommends this one "Brenda Ueland: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit". Maybe that helps.
chriseidhof
I have only recently started writing and found the HN community very friendly. Just get it out there, submit it and get feedback. Just write about what keeps your mind occupied. You will notice that once you start you'll continue to have new ideas.

Best of luck!

patrocles
OP: What makes you think you suck at writing?

Looking over your previous comments and about.me profile, you've already got the fundamentals down. The only thing left is to apply them like Mike Tyson does:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXL5dRYpM7E

Take a page out of Tyson's book and check your head to make sure you're having fun. On any given day, you have a slew of things you can write about; you'll never get them out though when your fingers are bleeding and your brain has been beaten stupid by your own thoughts.

Good luck. Post your writing-for-fun-dammit blog URL so we can shoot it down^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hyou our comments. ;)

VicT11
I mean, I'm able to communicate things. But I'm interested in being able to write in a way that's effective and intriguing. I look up to people's writing like James Altucher, Tim Ferris, and I think Paul Graham's essays are absolutely great. Partly I just need more experience in things to write about, but I'm trying to be proactive in getting better at it.

My blog is on my about.me page. I intentionally don't really post the link because I'm not happy with it as to publicize it - but feel free to check it out! vjtorres.com

patrocles
What do you like about their writing? A good (constant) exercise is to edit what people write, e.g. take an Altucher post and try rewriting it to make it better in some regard.

Hunter S Thompson supposedly typed the works of Hemingway until he finally could copy the pacing and rhythm. Maybe scan the headlines and find something that Altucher hasn't written about yet and write about it in his style.

Like a football game told as Altucher would. lol.

VicT11
I like it. I'll heed your advice. But a football game as Altucher would... now that's out there! hahaha. Thanks!
impendia
> I don't feel I have good subject matter to write on.

Don't write publicly if you don't want, but:

What did you have for breakfast this morning? How did you get home from work today? Tell me about the last time you went grocery shopping.

Etc. Pick these or any other asinine, boring topic and try to make it interesting. IMHO, it's good to do this in two steps. First, just sit down and write, continuously, without judgment or editing, write a lot. Then, figure out how editing can make it better.

VicT11
For other people interested check out https://www.kibin.com/. I haven't used it myself (yet) but it's basically an open source way of having your writing edited by others.