: Re: Acquiring vocabulary to write fiction I am a non-native speaker, learning the English language, and I am already fairly good in reading and writing technical texts. I also enjoy reading fiction

@Ravi5107385

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I believe it is true of all languages that fiction, technical writing, songs, drama, informal speech, and formal speech all have their different registers and specialised vocabularies.

How are these specialised vocabularies typically learned? I hesitated to answer this question because my answer seems so simplistic, but since no one else has offered anything better here it is: by reading or hearing a lot of that genre, whatever it is.

The typical path of a native speaker of English might be to pick up a "fiction vocabulary" in childhood without conscious effort, but for a discipline like technical writing they would have learned the appropriate vocabulary by formal education, as would a non-native speaker. And children in English-speaking countries vary widely as to how much they are exposed to fiction in the home. For many children they will only meet a fiction vocabulary in school.

The best way to pick up a good writing style in any genre is both to read a lot of works in that genre and to go ahead and write in that genre, accepting that your early efforts are likely to miss the mark in many ways (as is true for pretty much 100% of beginning writers, whether or not they write in their native language). You could join an online writer's circle where aspiring authors critique each other's work, and specifically ask for tips on how to get a more natural and informal style.

Another possibility to consider is that your English style not being that of a native speaker may be not a problem but a benefit. After all, the English language is not the sole "property" of people who learned it at their mother's knee. Many readers seek out books that take them in imagination out of the culture familiar to them and allow them to experience another perspective.

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