Getting Better at Writing

For those that don’t know, I am in high school, not only that, but it’s also an early college program.

One of the classes I’m taking happens to be a college level English class (English 101). Now, I’ve always found the concepts behind high school English interesting, the same way I find Music Theory interesting. When picking up these ‘proper ways’ to write a story or a piece of music, I realize that these things I love doing are incredibly complicated underneath the hood.

While it’s not necessary to know those complexities, it’s basically just tearing a hole in the knowledge you never knew you had to build it up slightly sturdier than before.

When you see these things you never know how something you’re doing works the way it does until you suddenly realize why, and oftentimes, it’s bittersweet, because you realize how much better it could be.

I bring this up to segue into another point.

One of the first pieces we read in English was this incredibly dense professional essay, reading it for fun would leave you pointlessly confused, much like reading an action scene too fast.

However, all this dense wording was basically saying one thing: there’s a transitional period where you go from unprofessional writing to professional writing. However, the essay also brought up that people who try and replicate that professional writing style (the mentioned transitional period), oftentimes make things that are tougher to read, overdetailed, or possibly underdetailed, and grammatically incorrect.

This comes from trying to replicate these people you look up to because you want to have all that skill and then some.

While this particular essay was discussing informative essays, I feel like that’s applicable to basically anything, because that’s how humans work.

For example, if you’re a musican, and you find a musician you want to follow in the footsteps of, you’ll naturally tailor your style to try and match up closer to theirs.

For me, that musician is Ringo Starr, the king of support drums. A unique style for every piece, oftentimes incredibly recognizable as well.

So, naturally, I’ll try and become like Ringo Starr, I’ll start to play with feeling similar to his for my own drumming expeditions. However, in the process of trying to replicate that feel, I’ll stumble on trying to be exactly like him, meaning the drum parts can be clumsy.

This usually ends in finding your own style inspired by it instead of replicating it.

That same thing happens in writing, too.

You’ll replicate that process, you’ll find a writer you really like, and then try and replicate them, usually ending up in your own style. However, for that transitional period, it will be incredibly clumsy.

I’d say I’m lucky enough to have found my style rather quickly, and have spent these last couple years refining it to make some of the greatest SoL stories about normal ponies doing mundane activities, but that style was already done better in regards to FabulousDivaRarity and one of my biggest story influences, A Day in the Life of Average Statistic.

There’s also the matter that it’s a neverending process. I’ve written plenty of stories that seem clumsy because I’m trying to replicate this style of SoL I’ve come to appreciate, and that’s perfectly fine.

If a story you write is clumsy, or it’s just something you feel like wasn’t written to the style you want to encapsulate, that’s perfectly normal. It’s a natural part of getting better at writing. Try to keep gunning for that style, because you’ll eventually find your own influenced by it.

I just wanted to state this for all the struggling writers who manage to find it. Those clumsy stories are natural, it never means you should give up.

And until next time; be awesome!
-Dashie