How do you become a great writer?

I love to write, I have no end of stories I want to tell and I want everybody in the world to read these tales, however I know they won't. Being a self-publisher I am also very aware that only a small percentage of people will likely ever find their way to my books. I find this to be an awful shame, because I know that as someone who has no end of passion for storytelling I should be entitled to be able to make my living writing books and telling my stories to the masses, right?

 

'I am no John Grisham or Clive Cussler'

The reality is that it is unlikely that being an author will be my route to the high-life no matter how much I desire it. Why is that? I hear you ask, well it's simple, I am not a great writer, don't get me wrong I don't believe that I am a bad one, but I am no John Grisham or Clive Cussler. When I send manuscripts into agents or publishers I get a very friendly 'not for us' response. So what does that mean for me? Not a lot to be fair, it means that they cannot see how my book could be commercially viable for them based on my poor writing, lack celebrity or failure to provide a ground breaking idea. I have seen however that some people get responses such as, 'take a writing class', or 're-think your whole story' and I never get that. However I know that I could write better, come up with more exciting stories and give publishers a better reason to support me.

So how do I do, become a great writer? I don't know to be honest, because if I did I would be doing it. All I can do is come up with ideas and try them out and when I do I can report back to you lovely people.


Ideas;

• Creative Writing Course
• Online Writing Course
• Writer Feedback
• Writing Competitions
• Agent Feedback
• Concept Board
• Creative Writing Book

Creative Writing Course

I have always wanted to take one of these courses as I haven't done anything like it since I did A-level English at night school. The only difficulties are that there are very few of these courses around my local area, so this may take a little research.

Online Writing  Course

I have started one of these previously but never completed due to the effect of my work schedule. I feel that I am in a better place to make this work now, although I am sceptical about how much an online format will help me but I am willing to give it a try. Time to look for a voucher me thinks.

Writer Feedback

This is a tough one, but I need to identify a writer who I like and trust the opinion of and let them have some of my work and demand a horrifically honest opinion. It won't be pretty but I think it will help.

Writing Competitions

I have never taken part in one of these, I am sure there are those of you out there reading this that have done plenty short story challenges, but I don't think I ever saw writing as a competitive element. However I also know that competition can help people up their game in every way, so it makes sense that I can improve this way.

Agent Feedback

The hardest one on the list I think as agents aren't known for giving a constructive opinion, but that will not dissuade me, I will do this the only way I can think of, be relentless, send out lots of manuscripts to a range of agents and challenge their rejection for something specific.

Concept Board

This should probably be the easiest task to complete, I come up with new ideas all the time and have lots of concepts sitting at different stages of development, but what I need to do is stop moving through them in the order they come to me and put the concepts up and work through them to see what ones have the best chance of producing an interesting and different story that will catch attention. Cue the whiteboard and big pens, this is going to be fun.

Creative Writing Book

Amazon is filled with books on every subject imaginable and creative writing is one of them. I have read and found useful books on the subject of self-publishing and writing quickly, but never on improving my own writing, so maybe they will be just as helpful.

7 ideas, 7 concepts, 7 ways of helping me achieve my goal and improve my writing. I will use these 7 ways as my apprenticeship and see if I can use it to help me cross the threshold to becoming a professional full time author. It's my hope that I will catalogue my progress over the next couple of months through the blog and let you all know how it's gone, successes and failure.

Wish me luck.


Written by,

Martin Wallace