Improve Your Writing with Smart Reading

For sake of argument, I'd like to go against the grain of common thought for a few moments and assert that the best writing advice isn't to write what you know, but rather, to be an avid reader. Follow your love for the written word as far as it will take you, around the world if necessary.

This applies to writers of every caliber, whether just starting out, or even if you are already in Publisher's Weekly, anyone would do well observing this lesser known writing secret. If you think about it, writing what you know and having a voracious reading appetite sort of go hand in hand anyway. Good writing doesn't just happen. It takes a regimen of practice, a bagful of writing tips, and a plan.

A Plan For Writing Excellence

Writing carries a dual responsibility. We must do more than seduce our readers with words. We must also titillate them. Through writing we seduce; with knowledge we titillate. Just as budding writers must write something everyday, they must also read something on a daily basis. Make it a plan. Today's book, magazine, or Internet session will awaken and inform tomorrow's writing. Some tidbit you read somewhere will jog your memory-an interesting passage will trigger an idea. And ideas are a writer's greatest asset.

Read Anything & Everything!

As writers, it is advantageous to know what our fellow qwerty-dancers are doing. Reading others' work gets us out of our own heads and freshens the perspective. See how time tested veterans shape their sentence constructions as they form their prose. Jack London, Stephen Crane, and even Hemingway all wrote for newspapers before they wrote fiction. If you write for print in today's electronic jungle, or are still banging out your first blog, or even if you're a busy pro who hasn't made time to visit these legends in a while, you are long overdue for a trip through the classics.

Read The Less Familiar Author-And Do It Often

Writing is as much self-taught as it is learned from others. Memorizing all the writing tips dating back to the Rosetta Stone will not hone your skills until you've seen them in use by others, and you learn to make them work for you. This lesson became one of those 'aha' moments for me when I read Italo Calvino, a contemporary Italian writer whose work has been translated more than any other writer, according to Wikipedia. Read Italo Calvino. He will expand your literary mind. My first encounter with Calvino was through an essay called Lightness (Calvino, Six Memos For The Next Millennium, Vintage Press). His style and diction are magical. Reading his work is as instructive as it is entertaining. And after Italy, go to Buenos Aires and get acquainted with Jorge Borges, then on to Prague, Algeria, and the rest of the world. Don't wait. The world's writing secrets are out there for you to find.