This مضمون contains suggestions for basic practices for being a good writer, and was last edited on 12 June 2009 (to add the admonition about backups).

How to be a Better Writer
If you're reading this, chances are that آپ are interested in being a Good Writer: someone who is able to write well and convey ideas effectively through text. Note that we are not talking about being a Successful Writer here, nor a Widely-Read Writer; those are separate concerns. Before آپ worry about who's going to read your writing یا what آپ can get out of your writing, آپ should concern yourself with making your writing worth reading. How do آپ do this? Below are some simple suggestions for practices that should improve your writing. Not all good writers do all of these things, but most do. Thus, it follows that if آپ want to emulate a good writer in the quality of his/her work, آپ should also emulate their practices. Each of these practices is important.

1. WRITE
This one should go without saying. To get better at something, آپ need to practice it. For a writer, that means writing all the time. No amount of mental composition, thinking about the writing آپ plan to do, will enable آپ to put the words together as effectively as actually writing the words. A week of careful consideration will yield less than an گھنٹہ of typing یا writing سے طرف کی hand will do.

Daily writing
Make sure that آپ write every day, not just on weekends یا weekdays when آپ "have the time". Write every day.

If آپ are at a loss for what to write, keep a journal and write in that daily. Carry a little notepad with آپ (or mobile device where آپ can quickly make notes), and jot down phrases, images, یا bits of dialogue that آپ see, hear یا imagine throughout the day. Commit yourself to writing a certain amount each day, either of time (I'll write for an گھنٹہ with no breaks) یا length of product (20 lines of poetry, minimum). Consider setting aside a regular time for writing, and also consider setting up a dedicated place for writing. Both of those can get آپ into the habit of writing such that, just entering that time یا place, ideas start to flow.

Write a lot
Try to write as much as آپ can. There's an old aphorism that the first million words آپ write will be crap. The trick, then, is to get those first million words out of the way so that آپ can get to the good stuff. Of course, the process of writing those million words is how آپ actually get better, so there is some importance to making sure that آپ keep writing volubly as well as often.

Keep an archive of your writing
Mostly one writes to get the words out of the way of the اگلے batch of words. That said, it's very useful to keep a backup of your writing: if آپ write on paper, file away your writing in a محفوظ place. If آپ write on the computer, make sure to regularly back up your writing onto a CD یا other local storage. This is useful for a number of reasons: inspiration (you can return to your writing months یا even years later and be impressed with the ideas آپ had, and also how much better آپ are at writing after that time), copyright (you have some evidence that آپ wrote what آپ wrote), and just having something to دکھائیں for your efforts. If آپ write exclusively online in posting to sites like Fanpop, you'd better start going back and saving copies as soon as آپ can. There's no guarantee that those sites will keep your content intact - there are database failures, power outages, کریکر attacks, and all sorts of other things that could cause the site to accidentally lose your writing - and if such a site goes out of business یا is purchased سے طرف کی another company, all bets are off as to what they keep. So your online writing could disappear overnight. Make sure to keep backups.

2. READ
Read a lot of the writing that others have done. While آپ should particularly read stuff that is similar to what آپ plan to write, آپ definitely should read widely, to give yourself broad exposure to different styles, voices, perspectives and approaches to writing. For this reason, constant reading is a good practice for developing your own writing.

Style
Every writer has a distinctive way that they put words, sentences and paragraphs together. Reading مزید will expose آپ to مزید writers' styles, which آپ can then bring to برداشت, ریچھ in your own style, or, if آپ become familiar enough with a دیا style, آپ can even imitate for comic effect یا as tribute to authors آپ particularly enjoy.

Voice
Well-written characters have clear behaviors, mannerisms, perspectives and attributes that define and illustrate who they are. Since this is all conveyed through words, it is referred to as the voice (either of the character - usually fiction - یا the مصنف - either fiction یا non-). This is often an extension of the author's style, which is specific to one character/narrator. Paying attention to character/narrator voice when آپ read will help آپ to be consistent in whatever voice آپ create for your writing.

Perspective
سے طرف کی reading, آپ may see different approaches to perspective of the narrative, from a first-person omniscient to a third-person flawed. As آپ can tell from those examples, there are two scales that measure perspective: the orientation, and the trustworthiness of the narrator/authorial voice.

Orientation: This can be first person, in which everything is written from the perspective of yourself. An example: "When dawn broke, I rose and checked my gear. Then I walked downstairs and unpacked the grenades." A different orientation is سیکنڈ person, in which everything is written from the perspective of the reader: "When dawn broke, آپ got up, pulled on those boots آپ like so much, and were halfway to the store before آپ realized آپ hadn't worn anything else." However, the most common orientation is third person, in which آپ write about someone else (not you, and not the reader): "When Dawn broke, Larry untied her and had the orderlies return her to her cell, where she would receive medical treatment as reward for her confession."

Trustworthiness: This relates to how much the narrator knows/how fallible the narrator is. Most common is the omniscient narrator (usually going hand-in-hand with the third person perspective), which presents the text as the factual truth, with no reason for the reader to doubt what is being communicated. Most journalism مضامین are written from an omniscient perspective. "President Obama today spoke to Congress about the bill." is an omniscient perspective, just as is "Henry pulled an arrow, nocked it, drew back to his chin and let fly all in one smooth motion, his eyes never wavering from Diane's." A limited omniscient narrator is similar, but tells the action only around one character with no jumping around in time یا place separate from the one character. If a story follows Ed the gameskeeper through 20 years of his life at the قلعہ and never shows us action that Ed didn't witness, but it is clear from the story that other stuff was happening that affects Ed - the narrator may even mention Ed's feelings, then that's a limited omniscience. A limited narrator is writing from the view of one who is actually a character in the story/narrative, and so stuff that happens in front of the character isn't necessarily conveyed accurately یا interpreted correctly. "Sam sat at the table, dealing cards. Sheila accused him of cheating, then all hell broke loose and I didn't see what happened next." Finally, an unreliable narrator is writing from the perspective of a character whose very accounts can not be assumed to be factual. "Paul sat there with a smirk on his face. یا maybe he cried. In those days, he did both with some regularity, so it could have been either."

Approach
This is a pretty broad topic, but reading different approaches can really help a writer of any level. Approach can mean the broad strokes: am I going to tell the story in chronological order? Will I write it in rhyming verse? Will it work better as past, present یا future tense? But approach could also mean the specific tacks the writer takes for a particular scene یا paragraph: will I use alliteration here? Will I develop a theme of the color blue here? Seeing the approaches that other authors have taken may give آپ ideas on different ways to approach your own pieces.

Dialogue
Reading a lot can help آپ with your dialogue: both how to write dialogue well, and in many cases how NOT to write dialogue well.

3. TALK WITH OTHER WRITERS
Having a writing group یا a regular get-together with other writers is key to writing well as well as improving your writing. Writers challenge each other, as well as energizing each other. Meeting regularly with other writers can:

1) Encourage discipline (making sure that آپ write regularly). If آپ have a writer's group and you're expected to bring some new writing/revision to each meeting, آپ are مزید likely to do it than if آپ only had expectation on yourself to write regularly.

2) Reinforce the idea that you're not alone. Other writers can commiserate with آپ about the difficulties with writing. They can offer tips at handling problems with approaches یا blocks from times they've had similar experiences, and آپ can gain confidence سے طرف کی talking to them about your solutions to problems you've had in the past.
Sometimes a writer on his/her own will start to feel blah about their own writing, but sharing it with other writers can get آپ out of those doldrums when they express their enthusiasm for your story.

3) Inspire آپ with their work. Reading another author's work in progress can be thrilling, because the other مصنف will almost certainly have a different style and voice than آپ do. Just reading new ideas and getting excited to see what happens اگلے in a work in progress can really rekindle the آگ کے, آگ for your own work.

4) Help آپ with your work. Sometimes just trying to explain what you're trying to say in your writing is enough for آپ to realize problems with your narrative. When that isn't enough, though, the other writers can hear your work and then give آپ feedback which can help out your craft.

4. CRITICALLY ANALYZE WRITING
Feedback is vital to a writer. But آپ don't just give criticism of others' writing in the hopes that آپ will get criticism in return! The main value in critically analyzing others' writing is that it gets آپ in the habit of reviewing the craft that went in to a particular piece of writing, identifying what technical choices were made and how they worked for the piece. As آپ focus on the (mis)spelling of others, آپ become sensitive to your own mistakes, and can thus correct them مزید easily.

What is critical analysis?
Critical analysis is reviewing a work, checking how it functions as a whole, as well as how each of the pieces contributes to that whole. Usually critical analysis is delivered to the مصنف of the work being analyzed, either in person یا in writing. This is so the مصنف can benefit, and so that آپ are organized and thorough in your criticism.


Some things to analyze
There are many things to consider when آپ critically analyze a piece, and that فہرست will be somewhat different based on the type of writing that you're reviewing. Poetry will be different than memoir will be different than reporting. Here's an example of some of the things آپ might consider when reviewing short fiction stories:
* spelling
* grammar (sentence structure)
* syntax (the order of words in the sentence)
* word choice (are the words being used correctly? Are the words repetitive یا limited? Do the words chosen enhance یا hinder the narrative?)
* punctuation
* dialogue (Is the vocabulary appropriate to the time period/social status/location of the character
* تفصیل (how well are things described, when they're described?)
* character motivation (Does what the character is doing/saying make sense? Does it make sense for that character?)
* plot (does the action make sense? Does it flow from one event to the other in an appropriate, believable way?)

SUMMARY
There are four broad categories that all writers should do: write, read, discuss and criticize. The first is foremost, but all of the others are just as important as any of the others. Try to consistently do all four and آپ will find your writing improving.