Want to be a better writer? Just write.

Today's guest post is by the ever-generous Elana Johnson, one of this month's mentors for our First Five Pages Workshop. Elana's debut novel, POSSESSION, and it's sequel, SURRENDER, are both available now from Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster). Find Elana on Twitter @ElanaJ or on her blog.

Want to be a better writer? Just write.

by Elana Johnson

Okay, so Martina asked me to do a post on craft. I’m not really sure what to do, because it’s not something I think about all the time. I know, I know, you’re shaking your heads, going, “How did she get published?”

But that’s exactly how.

You can read a million posts on craft. A million more on what you “should” do and what you shouldn’t. There are lots of books to help you with POV, setting, character, voice, plot, pacing, and everything else you can think of.

But I think the best way to improve the craft of writing is two-fold:

1. Read a lot. What kind of stories do you like? Why do you like them? (Fast pacing, great character development, strong plot arc, killer climax, etc.) What does the author do that you love? (Writing style, voice, sentence structure, placement of clues, twist endings, etc.) What do they do you don’t love?

2. Write more. Practice writing. Take those plot developments, those character arcs, those awesome beginnings you’ve been reading, and practice putting them in your stories. Write a book. And then another one. And then another. Practice does make perfect, as long as you’re trying to implement something new each time you do it.

Obviously, I’m not advocating plagiarism, but I think there is so much to be learned from observing and then trying, practicing, doing.

You owe it to yourself to try many different things until you find the one or two (or forty) ways this writing thing works for you. And then you “should” do that and don’t worry about the blog posts and craft books.

Just write. I don’t let myself get all caught up in the craft of writing while I’m drafting. That’s the best part about writing. The freedom. The exhilaration of writing something that I like now, but that I’ll perfect later.

It’s only after I complete the Zero Draft that I’ll examine the structure, the setting, the voice, the arcs in the plot and character. And I only do it in a way that makes sense to me. What sense is that? Not really sure, but when I read it, I know.

So for me, the best advice I have to improve craft is to read a lot and practice writing more.

Oh, you want a book that pushes me to write better? Fine. SKIN HUNGER by Kathleen Duey. I read that and thought, “I will never write this well, but I’m going to die trying.”

Have you ever read a book that pushed you to want to write better?