Going back to basics.

I know now what exactly is keeping me from my goal. I lack communication skills needed not just to write, but also to communicate with others. It's even apparent in this post. (ironically)

One awareness I arrived at, is that when I try and communicate and write a paragraph, I tend to confuse people especially when emotions are involved. Maybe because I use words unnecessarily or have the lack of transforming large amounts of information into a summary or a simple sentence.

What caused me to have this awareness? A bunch of misunderstandings with friends critiques on writing forums, plus an article Rejection. Yes, I got my first author rejection. But because I was aware other authors have been rejected for the same reasons, I was mentally prepared for it and it paid off. It gave me an awakening I needed and became aware of my main problem.

For years I have been working on a project. The project is in fact lined from beginning to end. (this means the story and the body is already finished, I just need to write it professionally). What kept me from finishing this project was not just lazyness, but also because words do not naturally flow from me. I have a vivid imagination, I can play scenes in my head in forms of a movie extremely clear, hell most of my time I spend in dream world or daydreaming or inside my very own story, while listening to some music that would spark up an idea or replay a scene from my story.

But forming words from those scenes is science to me. They are still abstract. But not only am I trying to perfect the style, I am also trying to devlope a new technique to get the readers hooked, much like J.K Rowling did with Harry Potter. So now I am forced to go back to basics. I have to re-learn from the bottom. Sentence structure, verbs, paragraph structure, coma's semi colons etc.

This is my weakness, and its one I want to strengthen. If you take a moment and see that in reality im extremely shy, and take for account that i spent many years isolated by myself without truly communicating with others. Plus spending time in forums using words like "lulz" , "wat" or in online games like World of warcraft using made up sentence structures like "Lfm sunwell pst." You tend to butcher the english language to a point where it becomes confusing inside the mind.



So the only thing left, is go back to basics, re-learn the english language and start over from 0. A wise person once said to me, "Sometimes you have to fall to make it out". That person was right, and it is because when we fall or fail, we become aware of our strengths and weaknesses. And by becoming aware, we can further improve on them. But one thing I realized, what I have been doing was trying to patch the style I had. This didn't work for me, as it became confusing.


Question I have for those who are published authors or have an extremely high grip on writing. If you had to start over from scratch. How would you go about it? Personally, I found quite a few ebooks on writing. There are alot of free ones out there. So I have the tools necessary to improve. But would like to know how would you go about improving?

There is a simple answer to this question, and then a more complicated answer I can give you for your problem here.

First off, the simple answer for the first, how to improve, is to practice, practice, practice, and then listen. Keep going with new ideas, take challenges with writing as they come along, and learn, all the time. When you get your work out there for people, ask for honest feedback. Most people of a mind for writing will give honest critique to your works.
There is nothing more disheartening than someone giving nothing than "it's crap," or "this isn't something I'd read." However, here you just need to sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak, and take away from what people say about your works in order to improve them, rather than getting flustered at what seems like negative feedback.

The second is don't be afraid to put your works out there to others. It is daunting to put what I consider to be personal works into a public forum, but if you want to get published and have a career in writing, at some point you will have to test the waters with an anonymous audience. Start small, get some feedback, learn some more. Writing is like any craft, the more you do it, the better you will become, and of course, the more confident you will become.

The more complicated answer is to surround yourself with like minds. Join a writing group in your local area, join online groups, and even go and do courses on creative writing, to give you the ideas of proper grammar and punctuation. It all works in your favour in the end, especially in the course of professional writing.

I would check out the thread Druid42 has created in the Short Stories Forum here for some great help in writing and proper grammar.

reply to post by 74Templar


Thanks, will check it out. What I did however was just go back and start relearning lessons from Junior high school and beyond.

A book I found that is helping me re-learn past lessons is called "Basic English Grammar book 1" I have book 2 as well. There are also quite a few videos on you tube about writing

This one is a really important one,