by Karim Jessa

Created on: August 16, 2011   Last Updated: August 31, 2011

Becoming a better writer should not be of concern merely for the reason of earning more money. Becoming a better writer should be, more than anything else, for personal satisfaction. It should be a matter of personal pride to be considered a better writer than the average.

After all other methods of becoming a better writer have been examined, one stands out far above the rest, and that is reading. Reading is not just one of the ways to improve your writing and make you a better writer; it is the only way.

Note that we said writing, and not anything else. We do not mean that reading is the only way to improve your language, though, when you come down to it, that might also be the case. But for our purpose here we shall restrict ourselves to writing.

This has nothing to do with improving your spoken language; which means, therefore, that it doesn't matter if you can't pronounce half the stuff you're writing.

Your conversational skills and your accent can be improved in any number of different ways. But we don't intend to, nor are we able to, teach oral skills. As well, it must be noted that in writing you do not wish to have a colloquial manner.

I realize that this is considered an outdated approach. The writing in fashion now is "to write as you speak." You are quite free to write in that way if you prefer, but that is not the view propounded here.

At the same time, we also do not wish to suggest that a formal style of writing be adopted. There is a manner of writing that takes a middle course where you neither sound like a university professor nor a street hawker. In my case, personally, I'd love to be able to write like a professor, but I doubt if that is what you're interested in.

So, then, becoming a better writer. You are probably expecting all sorts of instructions on the various styles of writing, strategies for getting ideas, how to edit, and so on. But all that is part of the craft of writing.

How do you become a better writer? Not a better craftsman, but a writer. How do you acquire that special quality, indefinable but evident in all great writing? It comes, quite simply, from great reading.

To develop a polished and fluent writing style, with the ability to suit the tone to the subject, you must read a wide assortment of books, magazines, and newspapers. However, you have to be extremely particular about the quality of your reading material.

Wide reading does not mean reaching for the nearest available junk magazine. Nor does it mean reading the

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