How to be an Excellent Writer

You ever wonder what a writer does when he doesn’t have any inspiration? He ends up either sitting around staring at a blank page, or doing what I’m doing now—writing a rant. Here’s a tip: if you want some short, light reading—don’t read a rant like mine…unless you want to know how to write a story that will draw in your readers and keep them coming back to your page hungry for more. Then—you should give this a read.

First off, don’t rely on sarcasm to write a good story. Sarcasm only lasts so long, and can only be understood by smart people. Instead, write about things that really matter to you, and that you’re passionate about. Never write about something you know nothing about, or about a place you’ve never been to, or a people group you have not socialized with. Always write about what’s familiar to you, or…if you are going to write about something you haven’t experienced, do a lot of research on the topic first. Only when you are well-versed on the topic should you attempt to write about it.

These tips apply to fiction as well as nonfiction—but especially fiction. A picture is worth a thousand words, so unless you’re a really good illustrator, you need to write descriptively. You can’t write descriptively about something you know nothing about.

Here’s another tip: become your characters—all of them. A secret to good writing in the fiction world is to become all of your characters. Even flat characters need to be believable; round ones need to be even more believable. In order to achieve relatability, genuineness, and ultimately respect from your readers for your characters, you must make them come to life. To do this, every character must be based on someone you know, know a lot about, have seen personally, or (this is the best way to create a believable character)—yourself. The characters do not have to be limited to just one person’s personality. They could be made up of several character traits collected from several different people you’ve come across. However, they all must be based upon real people.

Now, when becoming your characters, the trick is to relax, and not think, “This is stupid; I’ve never gotten into someone’s head. I can’t possibly write a good book.” Even if you start writing, and your work sounds terrible, keep going. Every good writer makes several false starts before coming up with the perfect story that will grip the hearts of all who read it. Keep becoming your characters—never stop doing that. The moment you stop getting into the mind, heart, emotions, and soul of your characters, you will bore yourself and your readers of your book. Obey the clique saying and “Keep it real.”

An important note to keep in mind when creating main characters is to use a personality type that you know extremely well (maybe even your own). Side characters can be made of strange and different personality types that you do not even relate to, and still be believable as long as they describe people you know…but when making your main character, you will not have enough momentum to keep describing a personality you know little about for an entire story. Therefore, you must keep the main character a personality type that either is your own, or someone’s who is a close friend of yours or whom you know well and have studied intently.

As a writer, you must enjoy people in order to make a good book. The reason is because you will be describing various people in your story. How can someone describe someone they don’t know? The simple answer is that no one can do this. Consequently, you must either be a people-watcher, a socializing people person, or a spy—preferably not the latter. If you have a combination of these amiable qualities, you are already on your way to being a great writer—for the simple but profound fact that you know people.

Then, it’s just a matter of putting your thoughts on paper. Take what you’ve studied about people and what you know about yourself, and just start writing. The more you describe the thoughts and emotions of your characters, the better you will get, and the more they will come to life. This is how to become an excellent writer.