Thinking Deeper to Develop Writing Skills, Discuss Options

[Guest_Nina_*]

I would like to pick up on a comment Fran made in her Flash thread talking about the character moving from river bank to boat, using the branch of a tree overhanging the water.

The bounce required a bit of planning - needs pace but yet to show readers what is happening very clearly.

Now I'm still very green when it comes to writing prose and have a long way to go in terms of learning and improvement.  How do you learn to get the balance right, becoming more aware of how you are writing?  I tend to just write what I'm thinking or seeing, rather than taking an objective step back to consider the readers. I feel perhaps that my writing is still too distilled, missing out on the little details that bring a picture to life but I just don't think about it when writing. How do I develop that skill?  When does conscious become subconscious or is it a case that you either have the ability or you don't?


Nina

[Guest_Rosemerta_*]

I stumbled on to this tile today and after reading the responses I am convinced I will never be a good writer, not that I hadn't believed that before.

Like many have confessed I too am one who writes from my own mental image. The first time I wrote anything my mind was racing to convey the scenes in my mind. I must have thought faster than I could type because when I was finished the story made little sense. This distraction of misspelled words and poor grammer were frustrating. I dropped so many words it read like I was speaking broken English or strung out on drugs. And what little description I had was pretty boring.

It was sometime later when I read "The Thorn Birds" that I realized how important description was to feed the imagination. I was disappointed when the movie came out as it wasn't nearly as good as the images I formed reading the book.

Now I find myself going overboard in that direction. I became a movie fanatic in the interum and now find myself describing each scene in such detail that the reader finds it too tedious to continue reading after the first few paragraphs.

I go nuts over the flash jams as by the time my thirty minutes are up I've barely described the first scene let alone the whole story I had in mind.

I have been so impressed with the wonderful suggestions MM members make in their responses. I don't know if time is an issue or if I'm just plain lazy but I never seem to get back to putting their suggestions to good use. However, I do think I gain from them in that they have helped me improve on my writings that follow.

I am in awe of those of you who write so diligently and consistantly. Such practice shows in the skill by which you put your thoughts down. I lack that substance that drives one to continue to hone their craft every day. I'll dive into writing for a day or two then find myself distracted by other things and disappear from the writing forum for weeks if not days at a time. What little progress I make during those 'on' days seems lost during the interum.

Yet even if I never master writing I have enjoyed reading the work of others here and have been imprssed with how so many of you grow and hit me with excellent writing time and time again.

IMHO I don't think Nina has anything to worry about. I find her to be one of the most dedicated and talented writers here. Rock on Nina!