#amwriting: educating yourself

Authors who are serious about the craft must learn how to write.

This means they must learn how to construct a sentence using accepted rules of grammar and learn how to construct a story, so it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

This may sound like a “Well, duh!” moment, but consider the number of free or 99 cent books available out there that, when you read the opening pages in the “look inside” option, are nothing but a waste of electronic space.

I can forgive a certain amount of proofreading errors—of all the many steps involved in getting a book to market, proofreading is the most difficult to get perfect. But I do need a good story.

The opportunity to learn writing craft is out there on the internet, and it costs nothing. We all know education in America is under fire at all levels. The determined learner can still get that education simply by going to the library and asking questions. Start there and use the information you glean there to lead you to other places to learn writing craft via the internet.

This is why it is crucial for us to support the libraries in our towns, both financially if possible, and with our patronage. In places where the education system is broken, libraries are the last bastion of opportunity for both children and adults with limited funds and unlimited curiosity.

If you are fortunate enough to have a secondhand bookstore in your town, purchase secondhand books on writing craft, and invest in technical manuals detailing different aspects of writing.

For the financially strapped author wanting to increase their knowledge, an amazing resource is the website Writers’ Digest. They are also for profit, but they offer an incredible amount of information and assistance for free.

So here, in no particular order, are my favorite sources of Online Information about the craft of writing:

• writersdigest.com
• Quick and Dirty Tips, by Mignon Fogarty
• Purdue O.W.L.
• PBS.org/GuiltyPleasures/HowToWriteRomanceNovel
• The Creative Penn
• Harlequin.com
• Creative Writing Now

Harlequin has one of the best websites, for teaching authors how to develop professional work habits, which is critical to being productive. I highly recommend you go to websites that specialize in writing romance novels regardless of what genre you write in.

I say this because the romance publishers have it right: they want to sell books, and they want you to succeed:

• They get down to the technical aspects of novel construction and offer many excellent tools for getting your work out the door in a timely fashion–something I need to work on.
• They also offer tips on marketing your work.

Most importantly, authors must read widely and understand many different forms of literature. Reading widens your horizons and opens your mind to possibilities in your own work that you otherwise wouldn’t consider. You must lose the fear of being stuck reading works you don’t enjoy.

Part of your education involves being able to clearly identify what you don’t like about a given work. You become less inclined to making broad statements, such as “I don’t like sci-fi.” You become more able to identify what it is that you don’t like about a given novel rather than dismissing an entire genre.

Many authors make the effort to get their MFA—a degree in creative writing. These degrees can be earned through most universities and also in many excellent stand-alone programs. Either way, this level of education requires an intense level of commitment, both financially and in terms of sacrifice on a personal level—two years of your life, to be exact.

According to Cecelia Capuzzi Simon in her article for the N Y Times, Why Writers Love to Hate the M.F.A.,

Creative writing programs are designed as studio or academic models. Often, programs combine aspects of both. They typically offer fiction and poetry tracks, though “creative nonfiction” is gaining ground, as are screenwriting and playwriting.

Many talented authors don’t have the money or education to get into a program like that. They are working day jobs to support their families. Yet, they want to learn the craft of writing. If you have some funds to dedicate to learning the craft of writing you can take online classes or attend seminars in your local area.

Author and Writing Coach, Lindsay Schopfer, offers several affordable online courses: http://blog.lindsayschopfer.com/online-writing-course

Author and University of Washington instructor, Scott Driscoll offers workshops in the Seattle area: http://www.thewritersworkshop.net/classes/fiction-writing-classes/

Look at the calendar of your local library, and see if they are offering any FREE seminars on writing craft. My good friend, author Lee French, and I are scheduled to give four seminars on writing craft over the course of 2017 through the local library, and they will cost the attendee nothing.

We discuss the nuts-and-bolts of various different aspects of creating a novel, offer handouts and advice in a congenial setting, and have met many wonderful local authors through this program.

If you check in your local area, you will be surprised just how many opportunities there are to learn about the craft of creative writing.

Credits/Attributions

Why Writers Love to Hate the M.F.A., Cecelia Capuzzi Simon, ©  NY Times Apr 9, 2015,  https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/education/edlife/12edl-12mfa.html?_r=0 accessed Feb 26, 2017

IBM Selectric, By Oliver Kurmis (Self-photographed) [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons, accessed Feb 26, 2017