by Elton Gahr

Created on: June 10, 2009

Writing is a competitive environment, more so when you are trying to make money, but in the end the best writers aren't the ones who think about how to best others writers but how to best themselves. Learning to become a better writer, to be competitive with yourself is something that every writer wants but often they don't know how to achieve it.

The first advice given when discussing how to improve your writing is to write and while that is true and should be done there is something even more basic. If you want to improve your writing then you should read. The more you read the better your writing will become.

It isn't as simple as just reading the genre and authors you love though. You must stretch yourself. Try to read at least one book a week and try to make sure to pick up something from every major genre at least once a year, and don't read more than two books from authors you have already read in a row. There is something to be learned from every author, even if it's what not to do, but you can't learn those things if you don't read their books.

As you stretch yourself as a reader you should also stretch yourself as a writer. Try new things with your writing. Change the perspective of how you tell stories, use characters that are harder for you to relate with. Tell a story in a unique way, write about things that interest you but that you don't know all that much about. To do this quickly short works are useful. Flash fiction is a fantastic way to experiment without losing too much time and sometimes you find that what you create when experimenting is actually good.

With the basics going the third thing to do is to begin to understand yourself as a writer. The better you understand the things you do as a writer the better off you will be. Learn to understand the grammar mistakes you make. Even once you know better you will find yourself still doing it if you don't think about it. Keep a list of them so you can search your work for it. The same is useful for words that you use too much or spell incorrectly. A list of these can allow the search function on your word processor to become your best tool.

Learn to edit. Writing is fun, but truly good writing comes more out of the editing process than the writing process. The better you become at editing the faster you will see improvement in your writing.

No matter how much you write you will always find things that can be improved and sometimes it is difficult to see how far you have come. For this it is often useful to occasionally open up some of your older stuff. It is especially interesting when you find something you once thought was good but now recognize just how bad it is and though it can make you cringe you will see that you are improving.

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