How to get better at writing

This reminds me of a post I wrote, "So you wanna be a writer: What Anthony Bourdain can tell you even when he’s not talking about writing": http://jseliger.com/2010/09/20/so-you-wanna-be-a-writer-what... . That's geared toward people who want to be professional writers, though.

I would emphasize Tenner's "read a lot" and "write a lot" parts. You should edit your own work, of course, but often you don't have the skills to do so incredibly effectively until you've built up a lot of knowledge about what works and what doesn't, which you won't be able to do until you've read a lot and written a lot.

Also, if you read one or two books about writing, you'll be much better off. A handful I consult regularly: 1) Write Right! (a simple, ~90 page book on grammar and rules that will see you through 99% of situations); 2) How Fiction Works, by James Wood (which is mostly about noticing what you read); 3) On Writing Well by William Zissner (a perennial recommendation); 4) On Writing by Steven King (which is so fun to read that it's hard _not_ to recommend).

This advice is not only for people wanting to get better at writing, it's more a general advice for improving anything. The best way to get better at programming is to program, to read about programming, and to practice new things while programming. Want to get better at throwing a football? Practice throwing a football, read articles on the best and proper techniques on throwing a football, and practice different variations of the techniques to find which one suits you.

I'd think this sort of advice is obvious, but lots of times one overcomplicates the learning process because of a need to make it easier to learn. This type of articles are needed to answer the main question every beginner (and even some advanced people) has at some time during the learning process: How do I get better?

By practicing. We often forget that it's that simple.

Another suggestion is removing waste words.

"If you look for them, you can find millions of occasion to write. Join almost any active online community and you will have many chances a day to write about whatever it is you have an opinion about. An active business will generate countless emails, each of which is an opportunity to write. And, of course, there are more traditional options, like blogging or otherwise writing for an audience."

"You can find a million occasions to write. Join an active community and you can write about anything. An active business generates countless emails, each an opportunity to write. There are also traditional options, like blogging or otherwise writing for an audience."

Phrases like "almost any" only work to weaken your claim. I know that this weakening is purposeful (I used to shy away from overly strong statements too), but the reader is already automatically weakening any statements you make, and doesn't need any help.

There have been a lot of good posts about writing on HN in the past month. Inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1851957 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1851526, I decided to try to write my own screenplay a few weeks back since I had never written in this style before. I found it to be an interesting exercise and it really helped me think through character and plot a lot more than I ever have with other types of writing. Given my experience writing this screenplay in the last month, I might also add to the list of swombat's [excellent] suggestions that you should practice writing different styles, whether it's poetry, screenplays, research papers, short stories, etc. Each one of these require different skill sets. I'd also add that just as reading a lot helps you write, the converse is true too. Writing regularly enriches your reading experiences.

If anyone's interested, I wrote a screenplay for South Park, partly to see what it was like to write a screenplay and partly to see if I could use SEO instead of the traditional process to get a screenplay picked up by a major network. Here's it is: http://www.scribd.com/doc/44671533/Underground-South-Park. I was thinking of hosting it on posterous or making a small wordpress site to put it up and see if I could drive people to it that way. Suggestions and advice welcome!

Excellent suggestions: practice often, review what you've written thoroughly, and expose yourself to great writing.

One other thing I'd add is to continually seek out feedback on your writing from different people. Blogging or journalling are great ways to do this. A lot of people have told me that my writing's improved a lot over the last three years, and it's really interesting to compare-and-contrast my current blog posts from the ones when I was just getting started.

've been amazed at how much

One thing I don't commonly see mentioned in these types of articles/posts/etc is something I've been doing for quite some time as an avid reader.

Often I will run across a phrase, or a sentence or sometimes a paragraph, that just feels awkward to me. I can't help but read it two or three times trying to find the not-awkward way of 'hearing' it.

When I encounter these I tend to type out the text that doesn't jive with me and then rewrite it twice:

1.) in a way that comfortably flows with the context I found it in (I call this exploring another writers voice.)

2.) and re-interpreting it in my own 'style.'

Never do I publish the results of this exercise. Aside from the obvious benefits of the two points above, doing this just helps me get the damned chunk of prose out of my head so I can move on with my life.

Does anyone else have any quick and dirty, improving your writing in the wild techniques?