Throughout the course of this blog, I often note that certain techniques require a certain level of skill to be pulled off successfully. This is well and good advice, but it doesn’t really give a response as to how to reach that level of skill. It might make it seem as though only certain writers have the skill sets to make certain things work, while all others are guaranteed to fail. I want to assert that this is not the case. I believe that anyone is capable of producing quality and enjoyable works of writing. The key to doing so is simple: just keep writing. Writing, like anything else that requires skill, is something you become good at through practice. You can learn tips and tricks along the way as well as learn specifically what not to do, but these are only useful if you actively engage in improving your writing through practice.

 

 

 

If you want to attempt something difficult, the first step to doing so is to first give it your best shot. Then wait for a bit. If you have just finished a piece of writing, you might be too enthusiastic and personally attached to your work to give it fair criticism. The opposite may also be true: you may be too critical of your first draft that you treat it more harshly than you would treat something written by someone else. After this cool-off period, you can look over what you have written, note the things you like and the things you don’t, and then repeat the process. Getting into a pattern of writing, waiting, reviewing, and rewriting can help a writer to develop a sort of honesty when reviewing their own work.

 

 

In addition to self-editing, I would also recommend having other people review your work, whether they be editors, beta-readers, or just friends or family. Having additional perspectives on your work can also help you to develop a balanced perspective when looking over your own work. Doing this also opens up your works to external criticism. While hearing that some people may not like your work as much as you may have hoped may be discouraging, it is important to keep on writing. If a person disliked your work for reasons within your control, such as inconsistencies in the narrative or breaking the suspension of belief, you can go back and fix these errors. If the reasons a person disliked your work is for reasons beyond your control, there is little you can do but accept that that person does not enjoy it and it is likely not personal. For every person who does not like a specific work for no other reason than it is simply not their cup of tea, there are bound to be at least a couple of others who do enjoy that work.

 

 

A common misconception about the writing process is that once you reach a certain skill level, you cannot improve from there. The truth is that you can never stop improving. While it is possible to get a certain piece improved until you’re completely happy with it, your skillset develops each time you write. Even when you’ve found you’ve mastered the techniques you wanted to master, there is always more incentive to keep developing your writing through practice. Each time you write, you open new opportunities for improvement and further exploring and defining your style. When it comes to writing, each step you take can help you to hone your craft and there’s only one way to do so: just keep writing.

In honor of National Poetry Month, this week’s blog will take a look at poetry. While it may not seem like it based on my other posts on this blog, I probably write poetry more frequently than anything else. Yes, I work on my draft for my fantasy novel and am almost always developing characters for projects on the backburner, but when I don’t have time to get deep into a writing groove, I find myself working on poetry.

 

 

Happy National Poetry Month!

 

I feel like generally poetry isn’t really considered a means of storytelling, unless your talking about an epic poem, like The Illiad or The Odyssey, or a ballad, like The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. But like a lot of written creative pieces, poetry usually tells a story. Even if characters aren’t developed or a clear protagonist is absent, poems still typically set a scene, address conflict, and contain a climax and resolution. I think the only difference is that poetry is often shorter than most published books. While some may see this as a drawback to the form, I personally see it as a challenge. Poems are usually, but not necessarily, personal, embued with style and technique that reflects the emotion and intent of the author. With so much to convey and only so much that can be said in order to prevent poetry from becoming prose, I think that this helps poets to create concise but meaningful writing.

 

 

In a way, poetry is the product of a lot of good writing techniques and tools condensed. For instance, poetry often relies on imagery and metaphor. These are techniques that can be used throughout a longer work as well, but if not used consistently enough, they can become vague. Poetry brings elements like these to the forefront of a work, allowing these images to be seen more clearly. Because of this, writing poetry using literary devices and techniques can help you to become better at using the same techniques on a larger scale. Just as for a larger work, imagery and metaphor are more clear when developed and consistently used in poetry.

 

 

Good poetry also has appropriate pacing. Again, working on pacing in poetry can help writers get a better sense for pacing when writing longer works. Pacing looks different depending on the type of poetry being written. A sonnet or a ballad is not going to have the same pacing as an epic poem, just as an action movie is not going to have the same pace as a slow-burn thriller. Some poems’ pacings are arranged by stanza. In sonnets, the first quatrain, or stanza of four sentences, sets the scene and establishes the conflict, the second quatrain further develops the conflict, the third quatrain shows the conflict’s volta, or turning point, and the last two sentences serve as a resolution. Other poems, like Robert Louis Stevenson’s “I Dreamed of Forest Alleys Fair,” pace themselves by segmenting the poem into different sections using Roman numerals. This is often based on different developments throughout the story of the poem. In “I Dreamed of Forest Alleys Fair,” the segmentation of the poem is based off of the passage of time. Segmenting poems is analagous to dividing a book into chapters or a play into scenes.

 

 

Overall, there are a lot of commonalities between writing prose and writing poetry. They are similar enough to help beginning writers of longer works better develop certain writing skills by working with them on a smaller scale. There are still many differences between the two mediums, but this doesn’t mean that elements from one form can’t be brought into the other form.