Advice/Help Any tips on improving writing?

[MochaMouse]

Are there tips on improving one's writing?

I've seen that are a lot of well written responses/posts on this site and I hoping to aspire to have the same level of quality to my own writing. As of right now, i feel like my writing skill have devolved to being uninteresting and stale due to a lack of practice. Some of the recommendations that I've heard alot so far is,

1. Write on a daily basis. Jot down any idea that pops into your mind, regardless if it good or bad as it could be expanded upon.

2. Read a lot of stories as it could be used as inspiration to help you with your writing.

I was hoping that others would share their experience or tips on how they made their writing better over the years.​

 

[BuggaBoo]

Hi!!

Here's a copy/pasta of advice that like I think translates well here. Hope this helps!

So i do write a lot. It's not great but i think it covers the bases. My goal is to always aim for 300-700 words.

Within 300 words the next person should find something of interest in your post from which they can build on. Basically at the core I do a 3 paragraph format of about 300 words as a min post. Like cuz that was what I was taught to properly RP with a partner when I first started out RPing and its served me well. The 3 Rs!!

○ | Para 1 = React! to prior post - but like dont just repeat with replay or like a play by play of past events. How does what has transpired so far affect your charrie in; phys, ment, emo ways?
○ | Para 2 = Respond! with charrie actions/convo - so allll that just happened in your prior para. Soooo like what does your charrie do or say about it?
○ | Para 3 = Release! more info to build on - Here you can 'telegraph' what your charrie might do or feel now. Perhaps even drop some exposition revealing how you used to feel or do feel about: person, place,thing now you've reacted. It's important here to make sure, your partners have something they may bounce off of. Like they may not use it right away but its always nice if they recall it later. And you can earn some Brownie points by proving you read all your partners posts cuz like you showed a reaction to it, whether enacted or just in exposition of thoughts.

And the reason I say 700 Words is cuz of posts that get all Rosey-Prosey and just vomit up too many uneccessary words. It's a good exercise to keep posts manageable but meaty for others to take in and not feel overrun. (Cuz yeah... guilty.)

But like a good para is 90-100 words so start off with a sentence answer to each R and go from there. And hopin you'll build 300 no prob with practice!!

 

[MochaMouse]

Hi!!

Here's a copy/pasta of advice that like I think translates well here. Hope this helps!

Thank you, I appreciate the advice!

 

[AaronMk]

Read more books or a wider range of books. Keep a notepad. Transcribe random conversation from the wild to get the familiar beat of conversation

 

[lizardanya]

my advice would be to consciously branch out. practicing every day is great, but sometimes you can hit a wall by just writing the same thing/style, making the same mistakes/cliches without really improving. there's nothing wrong with having a writing style, but it can limit you.

do writing exercises, write different types of characters, different genres etc. consciously experiment with vocabulary, sentence length, tone etc. place limitations on yourself, for example a good way to practice your economy of language is to have a scene outline and have limitations on your word count.

take a scene idea, doesn't really matter what scene, and then rewrite it multiple times, first in around 1k words, then in around 500, then in around 100 (this is just an example, you can adjust the limits to be harder/easier if you want). this forces you to consider what kind of things are important to setting the scene, the tone, what emotions are most important, how to rephrase sentences to take up more/less space and how to make your writing more precise. it will also force you to actually think about your writing, rethink what kind of vocabulary you're using and how to make it most effective. writing a lot of words is good, but what really tests your skills as a writer is being able to convey the same emotion equally effectively in 1k words and in 100.

you can also challenge yourself by randomizing prompts and writing short stories based on them. this can either be by finding full prompts, or by basing your writing on a few key words. take a prompt, pair with a random genre, and challenge yourself to write something in those constraints.

you can also come up with more fun challenges like this. good way to practice your vocabulary is by just banning yourself from using some words and trying to come up with another way to convey the same idea. many memes have been said about how teachers banning the word "said" leads to students just using a ton of stilted, unnatural synonyms randomly in order to avoid it, but the problem here is that you can avoid a word without just using a synonym. for example instead of using a stilted synonym for "said", you can write dialogue and then, in order to indicate who's talking, describe an action the character is doing while saying those words. you also shouldn't do this mindlessly, consider why the character is doing something while talking, consider what they're doing. always remember that there should be a reason for highlighting any action of any character, consider how the description of the action is impacting the tone, voice and meaning of the words being said.

another fun writing exercise is writing dialogue exclusively - no narration, no information given outside of the dialogue itself. this both helps practicing writing natural sounding dialogue and forces you to try creative ways to indicate certain moods, actions, signifiers of who's speaking when all in that dialogue, while still trying to make it sound natural.

hope at least some of that advice helped! if you ever want feedback on your writing, as well, feel free to dm me, i can critique it as harshly or as softly as you like. best of luck!

 

[MochaMouse]

my advice would be to consciously branch out. practicing every day is great, but sometimes you can hit a wall by just writing the same thing/style, making the same mistakes/cliches without really improving. there's nothing wrong with having a writing style, but it can limit you.

do writing exercises, write different types of characters, different genres etc. consciously experiment with vocabulary, sentence length, tone etc. place limitations on yourself, for example a good way to practice your economy of language is to have a scene outline and have limitations on your word count.

take a scene idea, doesn't really matter what scene, and then rewrite it multiple times, first in around 1k words, then in around 500, then in around 100 (this is just an example, you can adjust the limits to be harder/easier if you want). this forces you to consider what kind of things are important to setting the scene, the tone, what emotions are most important, how to rephrase sentences to take up more/less space and how to make your writing more precise. it will also force you to actually think about your writing, rethink what kind of vocabulary you're using and how to make it most effective. writing a lot of words is good, but what really tests your skills as a writer is being able to convey the same emotion equally effectively in 1k words and in 100.

you can also challenge yourself by randomizing prompts and writing short stories based on them. this can either be by finding full prompts, or by basing your writing on a few key words. take a prompt, pair with a random genre, and challenge yourself to write something in those constraints.

you can also come up with more fun challenges like this. good way to practice your vocabulary is by just banning yourself from using some words and trying to come up with another way to convey the same idea. many memes have been said about how teachers banning the word "said" leads to students just using a ton of stilted, unnatural synonyms randomly in order to avoid it, but the problem here is that you can avoid a word without just using a synonym. for example instead of using a stilted synonym for "said", you can write dialogue and then, in order to indicate who's talking, describe an action the character is doing while saying those words. you also shouldn't do this mindlessly, consider why the character is doing something while talking, consider what they're doing. always remember that there should be a reason for highlighting any action of any character, consider how the description of the action is impacting the tone, voice and meaning of the words being said.

another fun writing exercise is writing dialogue exclusively - no narration, no information given outside of the dialogue itself. this both helps practicing writing natural sounding dialogue and forces you to try creative ways to indicate certain moods, actions, signifiers of who's speaking when all in that dialogue, while still trying to make it sound natural.

hope at least some of that advice helped! if you ever want feedback on your writing, as well, feel free to dm me, i can critique it as harshly or as softly as you like. best of luck!

Thank you I really appreciate the offer, I'll keep that in mind when I write next time.

 

[Daisie]

my advice would be to consciously branch out. practicing every day is great, but sometimes you can hit a wall by just writing the same thing/style, making the same mistakes/cliches without really improving. there's nothing wrong with having a writing style, but it can limit you.

do writing exercises, write different types of characters, different genres etc. consciously experiment with vocabulary, sentence length, tone etc. place limitations on yourself, for example a good way to practice your economy of language is to have a scene outline and have limitations on your word count.

take a scene idea, doesn't really matter what scene, and then rewrite it multiple times, first in around 1k words, then in around 500, then in around 100 (this is just an example, you can adjust the limits to be harder/easier if you want). this forces you to consider what kind of things are important to setting the scene, the tone, what emotions are most important, how to rephrase sentences to take up more/less space and how to make your writing more precise. it will also force you to actually think about your writing, rethink what kind of vocabulary you're using and how to make it most effective. writing a lot of words is good, but what really tests your skills as a writer is being able to convey the same emotion equally effectively in 1k words and in 100.

you can also challenge yourself by randomizing prompts and writing short stories based on them. this can either be by finding full prompts, or by basing your writing on a few key words. take a prompt, pair with a random genre, and challenge yourself to write something in those constraints.

you can also come up with more fun challenges like this. good way to practice your vocabulary is by just banning yourself from using some words and trying to come up with another way to convey the same idea. many memes have been said about how teachers banning the word "said" leads to students just using a ton of stilted, unnatural synonyms randomly in order to avoid it, but the problem here is that you can avoid a word without just using a synonym. for example instead of using a stilted synonym for "said", you can write dialogue and then, in order to indicate who's talking, describe an action the character is doing while saying those words. you also shouldn't do this mindlessly, consider why the character is doing something while talking, consider what they're doing. always remember that there should be a reason for highlighting any action of any character, consider how the description of the action is impacting the tone, voice and meaning of the words being said.

another fun writing exercise is writing dialogue exclusively - no narration, no information given outside of the dialogue itself. this both helps practicing writing natural sounding dialogue and forces you to try creative ways to indicate certain moods, actions, signifiers of who's speaking when all in that dialogue, while still trying to make it sound natural.

hope at least some of that advice helped! if you ever want feedback on your writing, as well, feel free to dm me, i can critique it as harshly or as softly as you like. best of luck!

I was thinking of posting something but honestly I can't give better advice than this, so...
Ditto, lol

 

[cherryflavorcola]

Follow the classic rules, but don't be afraid to innovateteh

I think a good practice is to make yourself engage with things you wouldn't normally think to. Experiment with what genres and mediums you'll reach out to. If you have no ideas, see what people you know really like; the types of things that wouldn't normally appeal to you. Of course, also just give the things your friends like a try on their own merits, too...

 

[starboob]

i don't think i started getting better at rp until i met partners who were just a level or two above my writing at the time. they helped me think about new ways to communicate an idea or thought while also not being at a skill level that was totally unreachable. from there i could adapt and improve my own style. i didn't actually start doing the whole "read more to write better" tip until recently and that's mostly because academia sucked the joy out of reading for me and i am finally recovered from that experience, haha.

nowadays i'd say everyone i've written with in the past 3-4 years is at my exact level and we all have different specialties with regards to writing. like, i had a writing partner a while back who was the literal queen of metaphors and writing with her really helped me understand how to write an effective metaphor. my current partner and i are the most similar in terms of style and skills, and i think what's helped us grow is that we're open about what we want to improve in our writing. while we never critique each other posts, we do highlight what the other did really well and i think that feedback helps to know what's working.

best of luck c:

 

[Megatron2024]

when a character speaks: make it a different color. i use blue.

 

[Daisie]

when a character speaks: make it a different color. i use blue.

That makes it look cool! It doesn't affect the quality of the writing itself, though.

 

[Megatron2024]

That makes it look cool! It doesn't affect the quality of the writing itself, though.

thank you for reading my post.....

 

[Ridley]

Like others here have already mentioned, I would also recommend reading more novels. Look into a genre that speaks to you and research what books have the kind of writing style that you'd like to have.

Or, if there are writers in these kinds of spaces whose prose you aspire to have, you could always read through their past posts and get inspiration.

That's always a huge compliment to a roleplayer.