Painting With Light

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As I get ready to go full tilt into the holiday season with my family, I thought I’d mention one more time, to every wanna be writer out there, the most important thing I’ve learned about being an author.

It’s important to understand there is a difference between a good writer and a good storyteller.

A good writer is focused on the literal qualities of writing, but a good storyteller is someone who tries to see and appreciate the story in everything. As you can imagine, when you have a more open mind towards what is a story, your skills associated with storytelling improve, because you’re challenging yourself.

Write Often
The truth is, you cannot become a good storyteller unless you practice writing and telling stories often. How often you should write is up to you, but it should almost always be more often than you think you’ll be comfortable with.

For instance, I write a little almost every day. If writing every day feels like a challenge to you, please keep in mind one of the key benefits in writing often … whatever that might mean for you … is making a conscious effort to think about your stories. One of the biggest benefits I saw in my writing life came from writing daily.

Fairly quickly, I realized I didn’t write daily because I had inspiration, or always knew what was happening next … but because I was forcing myself to think about my stories. This, in turn, led to me thinking about my work and finding solutions in my subconscious. So, first and foremost, I suggest you ask yourself if you’re writing often enough.

Read a Lot
No matter what type of writing you do, you absolutely need to be reading. I’ve said this before, too, and it’s not an option. In studying the prose of others, you can learn how to craft a beautiful sentence, to pace a story, and create abstract meanings with personification, paradoxes, and other literary devices.

Finally, good prose teaches storytellers how to break all conventional rules and structures, and still tell a believable story, which is why you should always be reading regularly.

Look for the Story in Everything
As a writer, you should look for the story in everything. In doing so, you’ll often find solutions for your characters that didn’t seem to be available at all. You will discover they really are out there, waiting for you to find them.

Take some time to people-watch. Listen to the way they talk. Not only will it help you craft believable dialogue, I’m convinced you’ll find, within a few minutes, you can create an entire scene just from two people together.

Once you learn to pay attention and discover these everywhere stories, you’ll never be short of ideas, and your readers will find it hard to put your stories down.

Keep writing, and have a safe and happy holiday season.

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I will be joining other local authors signing books from 10:00am-4:00pm at the Rochester Hills Public Library Author Fair on Saturday, November 30, 2019.

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Gentle Readers, my books have all garnered some terrific reviews. You can see all of them by using the Amazon link below. Check them out. Better yet, buy one and read it. You just might like it.

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You’re invited to visit my author’s website, BROKEN GLASS to hear the remarkable radio interview about my novel “Blood Lake” on The Authors Show, or see my three local television interviews. You can also like my Book of Face page, find me on Goodreads, or follow my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.

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Comments posted below will be read, greatly appreciated and perhaps even answered.

Tags: award-winning writing, self-publishing, storytelling

This entry was posted on November 25, 2019 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Award-Winning Fiction, Independent Publishing, Storytelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.