Methods to Writing: Techniques and Practices
Alter and understand how you write with these questions and tactics.
As you write, you may lose lustre for the practice. You may feel bogged at the pen, or you may need something new. Writing is an endless plain of haphazard possibilities.
However, there is a definite beginning we can point out to you when you chance the road of wordsmanship:
Let’s talk about improving your writing with writing principles and practices.
Firstly, why do you want to write?
Think and come to know your writing objective: your purpose behind writing and what you hope to achieve by it. Write it down.
What is your definition of good writing?
*You can make this an exercise by analyzing a piece. Deconstruct a written work and explain why it works.
Analyze a physical example of what you consider to be the perfect standard of writing.
What about the language you use?
What do you want your reader to walk away with? How do you want your work understood, and how do you want it to be read?
Practices & Exercises:
What you have now is your standard of writing. Now it is time to dive deep into the little studies that will improve your current skill.
Genres, tones, & voices
When practicing writing, embark on different styles, genres, tones, voices, and point of views.
Genres:
Critical theory (Criticism)
Essay (Print and online)
Epic poem
Lyric poem
Plays
Screenplay
Short story
Skits
Letter
Philosophy
Myth, creation myth, fables
Speeches
Technical writing
Microfiction
Interviews
Investigative journalism
*Other tid-bits that don’t come under genres, but, if practiced, will come in handy for any project you begin.
Prefaces, introductions, afterwards, epilogue, and abstracts
Descriptions (for settings, articles of clothing, art, etc.)
Business report
Scientific research paper
Points of view:
From the opposite gender
Inanimate object
Omnipresent/omnipotent
Animal Kingdom (Kingdom Animalia)
Kingdom Plantae
2nd person
Historical figure
Tones & voices
Try writing outside of your native thought and intuition. There are different tones and voices for this:
Sarcasm
Satire
Humor/Wit
Factual
Suspense/Horror
Drama
Formal
Informal
Antiquated
Contemporary
Dialect/Vernacular (real and invented)
Setting & time period
The possibilities are most likely endless here, but let’s take a look at some sure beginnings:
- Write from different points of view throughout the piece. (With by Donald Harrington does this spectacularly.)
- Write from disparate events out of linear timeline order. Tell the story from different parts of time.
- Time-period, any time period, really, but this does require some research, maybe, or not, just wing it.
Learn a new language
Or just some language.
This is a lot of dedication, and too much to ask for from the budding prolific writer reading this. But, it is worth the extra effort.
Learning a new language comes equipped with new possible sentence structures (syntax) and a wholly new set of words that will influence how you use your own native language. Furthermore, it’s been proven that learning a second language changes how you think and understand information. At the very least it is good for cognitive health.
New ways of saying and writing things will come to you.
Even learning some Latin words will explain the etymology of certain words in our current lexicon, giving more depth the how you choose to create your writings.
The language behind writing
Language is a living entity that’s always evolving (courtesy of slang). New words and their combinations, phonetically and syntactically, are always being added into a spoken language. As we write, we add to this combination, taking future, past, and present diction, manipulating our language to have it work for what we want it to say. And what do we want our writing to say? This is what we work with when we write, and we want to do that well.
*if you liked this article, I invite you to submit your poetry, essays, microfiction, and other writings to Gobstich.com! We’re open for submissions.
