Technicals of writing

Sorry for this post being two days late. Life and stuff but here it is.
So last week I talked about the real secret to writing being just to write. That is true but there are little things that you can do to make your writing better. As someone who's college degree is based on writing I do not want to discount writing classes. I have taken six classes solely dedicated to writing that is not including all the classes where I was expected to write papers or responses to whatever we were doing if you include those I have a four degree in writing. Those six classes were just about creative writing not about paper writing or anything like that and the last three books were not part of the teaching it was solely about doing your writing and how to make it better.

In my many classes about just writing I have only two books that I have kept on writing. Every other book I either did not buy or I have sold back. But this two are really good books with helpful things in them. The first one if Fiction Writer's workshop by Josip Novakovich. This book is great is breaks down chapter by chapter from Setting to Revision. At the end of each chapter Novakvich gives you writing prompts about whatever the chapter was about. The prompts are excellent and they do push you as a writer. It is easy to read, with interesting points about writing and I still use it.

The second book is Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern.  I have had this book for over two years. Stern defines just about everything that you could have a question about. For example Convention- A literary convention is a feature that readers accept even though it violates what is considered real or probable.
That is just the first sentence Stern goes on in depth about all of his terms. He even tells you where to go if you are looking for something similar at the end of the definition. I have had this book for almost three years and again I still use it.

Now for my last thing about helping your writing is to find your local writers group. Most cities have one and if yours does not you should start one. There is nothing to beat having someone read your writing and give you honest thoughts about it. How this was done in my writing classes was this. Everyone would have read the work at least two days before meeting, they would talk about the work without the writer saying anything ( how that was done was by putting a pen in between their teeth), the talkers would give their thoughts but they were never to be rude or mean or anything just negative. That does not mean that if they did not like the piece they had to lie but the talker had to express their feelings but remember that the writer has feelings too. It is something that is learned, I am still learning it but if I think about how I would feel if I said this versus that I stop. Next I will share stories about my years of writing class stories. See you then.