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Creative writing is an excellent way to stretch your imagination and ultimately become a published author or a top-notch blogger. Here is a mix of some traditional and out-of-the-box strategies to improve your basic creative writing skills.
Learn the Basic Grammar and Punctuation Rules
Your writing will flow much better when you learn and follow punctuation and grammar rules ( tenses, sentence structure, etc).
Good grammar also enables you to articulate your thoughts in a more polished manner. Having a deep understanding of grammar and punctuation lets you engage your readers, leaving a positive impression.
Practice Writing Daily
Once you get into the habit of writing daily, it’ll improve your vocabulary and flow of sentences. If you are busy, just try to write only a few lines in a day. This will help you gain experience and confidence to become an excellent writer. After a few weeks, you’ll also start to find writing and expressing yourself much easier by practicing every day.
Establish a Reading Schedule
Establish a reading schedule so you can learn from the books you consume. If you have developed a strong reading habit, you will see an improvement in your vocabulary, sentence structuring, and writing ideas. So, cut down on social media and TV, and invest those 30 minutes you save on reading to become a better writer.
Learn From the Experts
Find a role model, someone whose writing impresses you or the expert author in your favorite genre. Read their work carefully and learn how they structure their text, the vocabulary they use, and the norms they follow. This can improve your writing skills because following a role model is the most powerful form of education.
Self-Discipline is the Key
If you struggle to achieve motivation, consistency, and focus, to write great scripts, self-discipline can assist you achieve that. When you discipline yourself in making reading, writing, and editing your daily routine, chances are huge that you’ll see a quick improvement. You can develop a daily schedule and follow it to discipline yourself.
Take Creative Writing Classes
Taking creative writing classes can help you enhance your general linguistic skills, boost creativity, expand your vocabulary, and learn new ways to express yourself by receiving guidelines and constructive criticism.
These learnings and takeaways can be powerful assets for both professional and personal writing. If you are from “The Evergreen State”, try taking these creative writing classes in Seattle.
Join a Writing Club
When you join a writing club instead of a solo endeavor, it will give you much-needed encouragement, inspiration, and support.
By joining a writing group, you can find beta readers for your work before publishing it. It can be very beneficial, when a fresh set of eyes review your writing and suggest improvements. While you get feedback from beta readers of your writing club, you will also feel accountable to your group and improve.
It can act as a safe place to share your writing without the fear of your work getting stolen. You will also get to read and critique the work of your group members. Critiquing the work of other people can even show you ways to improve your own writing.
A writing club can also help you navigate through slow writing times or even writer’s block. We would highly recommend joining such a group to get helpful insights from your writing peers.
Become a Part of the Writing Community
You can join writing communities through LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. This is an incredible way to connect with other writers, especially the ones who write in the same genre as you. If you connect with experienced experts through writing communities, you’ll soon start to make progress and ultimately hone your craft.
Take Part in a Writing Competition
You can boost your creative writing skills by taking part in writing competitions because you get feedback from judges or editors which can help improve your craft. It can also be a fantastic way to get recognized as a writer, which will boost your confidence and motivate you to write better and more.
Proofread Your Work
Proofreading your work yourself is a must to improve creative writing skills. Go through your work a few times and look for spelling and grammar mistakes. Imagine reading a well-written book with plenty of mistakes in it. Not only will the mistakes discredit the book, you wouldn’t even want to finish reading it.
Revise Your Draft
When you write something, you may want to hold the temptation to be satisfied with it and put the draft aside. It makes a lot of sense to revise your first draft a few times and look for ways to enhance it.
Consider revising your draft once again after some time with a fresh mind. We are sure you will be amazed to see the difference between your first and final draft after a few revisions.
Observe to Get New Ideas
Observe how different people interact with each other in various situations to get new story ideas. When you closely watch how people go about in their daily lives, it will give you new topics and inspiration for story and character designs.
To practice people-watching you can go to your local mall, a café, a park, or any place where you can discretely observe and discretely write down any notable interactions. Use these interactions in your stories and other creative work to give them a realistic touch.
Give Freewriting a Try
Freewriting is a type of creative writing where you write just for your own consumption. It is like writing something in your secret diary and reading it later on. This helps aspiring creative writers a great deal because they are not writing for readers who will judge the work as good or poor.
When writers can write without the fear of being judged, this simply allows the thoughts to flow. Therefore, if you are looking to improve your creative writing skills quickly, do consider free writing.
