So You Wanna Be A Writer: Step One

You’ve read my posts on why writers are neurotic, and you think, “Hey, that sounds like fun. I’d like to be a writer. I want to obsess over sales numbers, gnaw my nails over reviews, and generally live in a state of perpetual uncertainty. How do I get that gig?”

Like any career, there are many paths to becoming a writer. What advice I suggest here (and in future steps) is just that … advice. It should be taken with a grain of salt and a generous helping of does-this-sound-right-for-me? It is based on my personal experience, and yours could be completely different. So keep that in mind as I tell you how I think I became a writer.

Step One: READ

Read anything and everything. Read magazines and journals. Read articles and books on writing. Read short stories, non-fiction, anthologies, and (of course) full-length books. Read the genre you want to write. Read outside that genre, too. Go back and read all those books you hated in school.*

Here are a few reasons why reading is critical to a writer:

1. The Art of Language — Reading teaches, at the most fundamental and subconscious level, how to use words and language to communicate with a reader. You may not want to write like George Orwell, Dean Koontz, or Nora Roberts, but read a variety of authors/genres/styles so you begin to understand the choices and nuances that make each writer’s voice unique.
2. The Art of the Story — Writing a sentence, a paragraph, or even a scene is one thing. Writing an entire novel is another. The first requires an understanding of language, grammar, and style. The second requires an understanding of story arc, the way a plot moves from opening scene to ending in a logical, believable, and elegant manner. You can learn a lot from movies and books on writing, but there is no substitute for reading a novel to learn how a novel should/could/might progress.
3. The Market — Writing is a business. Like it or not, publishing is a profit-seeking industry. Publishers buy books they think will sell well. Of course they want good books, but they also have certain tastes and beliefs that some stories (vampires, for example) have larger markets than others (alien coming of age books set in the Great Depression). By reading what on bookshelves right now, especially what’s in the new releases, you’ll get a picture of what the industry is buying.

There you have it. The first step in your writing career. Check back often for more steps. (Can’t tell you how many, exactly, because I have a sneaking suspicion this is a never-ending journey.)

Hugs,
TLC

* Until I got to college, I hated reading. Or, at least, what I thought was reading. The reading English teachers made us slog through nearly killed me with boredom. On the side I read things for fun–first it was Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High, later it was romance and Michael Crichton–but those books didn’t count. Just because you can’t stand “classic literature” right now doesn’t mean you aren’t meant to be a writer.