: Re: What are good ways to improve as a writer other than writing courses? As a novice writer to improve my writing I have taken one online course. I want to ask, what are good ways to improve

@Steve161

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The best way to improve as a writer is to write. Just write. Then write some more. Then look at what you've written critically, ask others to read and comment, then rewrite and write some more.

Courses are a systematised way of doing the above. If having someone tell you "write!" helps you, go ahead. But you have to understand that at the core of them all is the simple imperative - write.

To be able to look at your piece of writing critically, you also need to read. Try to read critically. Notice the author's choice of words, use of tropes, rhetoric elements. Reread works you have enjoyed, to better notice the pins and cogs that make them work. Break those works apart, see what makes them tick, and where they clang.

Telling stories is not like playing a musical instrument. With a musical instrument, you first need to learn how to get it to make a sound at all, you start from learning the letters, and then combining them into words. None of this is "natural" (making music is natural to humans, or at least ubiquitous across human societies - a particular instrument is not). With stories - you already know the words. You've been telling stories your entire life: every time someone asks you "how was the vacation", or "what are your plans", you're telling a story. So it's just a question of honing your skill to achieve mastery of telling stories.

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