Want to be good writer or author? Do Write!
An author of book is a creator of original idea that expressed through words and placed on paper. In the beginning, the idea is originated and forms in one’s mind before it can be composed as a book or other form of publication. The idea is placed on paper in order to tell story or declare important or specific information to others. Author tends to tell in order to be heard. Author is a generator of idea with reservoir of information who able to write structurally in order to teach, to guide and to discuss. An author has strong feeling of need to share with others his ideas or information. To become an author you must learn to write.
There are so many different authors who are writing in different categories and can be identified by specific names or titles, if you wish. Some of the categories, titles, kinds or types are very familiar to us and about some we here only from time to time. I will give you few interesting examples.
We can immediately recognise and relay to “biographer” who accounts someone personal life or “autobiographer” (writing about its own life) or "historical biographer" who writes about specific historical event or many events of particular period of time (century or era). What about “hagiographer” or “hagiographist”? What is so specific about this definition of an author? Well, believe it or not, hagiographer or hagiographist is an author who idealizing particular biography and in some cases even worships it.
What about “wordmonger” ? Have you heard about authors who so careless with language and so pretentious with titles that the actual content loosing the quality of meaning? Well they are the “wordmongers” by all means of this definition. It is nice to be called or recognised as a “wordsmith” writer which means fluent and prolific writer in opposition to “wordmonger” or “hack” writer which basically means mediocre writer. Isn’t it? Well, let us comeback to the main question. How to be a good writer or good author?
So, what to do in order to be regarded as a good quality writer and therefore good, well recognised author of your writings?
Believe it or not as a writer and as an author you must learn to be ruthless to your own ‘baby’ (content) in order to be concise you have to put in trash all unnecessary words or sentences. Yes, straight in the bin they go.
Simplicity is the key to achieve great appeal to your readers and it means - avoid the long and complicated words, where shorter version can explain the meaning. Remember, good writer is all about quality and not quantity. That is why any writer needs a professional editor and professional editor could live the first impression as an enemy number #1 but in reality must be always regarded as friend #1. Regardless of how much you believe that you can avoid editing- you are totally wrong. Your best investment in order to learn the art of good writing and make your book a better quality must be in hiring professional editor without even second thought.
Consider this- writing is a skill and in order to become skilful writer you cannot avoid practice. Practice means time and persistence accompanied by determination. To be precise, you must write everyday in order to polish your style. You must read every day in order to polish your grammar and increase you vocabulary. You must meet from time to time with other writers in order to exchange ideas, knowledge and even wisdom. You must learn how to research for specific information or facts. You must also try to learn to edit your writing by reading it out loud to hear how fluent your writing is, before submitting it to professional editor. As you see, it is not so easy to become good writer or good author but with time, persistence and determination you certainly, can achieve the best possible result.
One more think I would like to add. The actual result is important but over rated, from my point of view. It is because the actual process is underrated by many writers. This process of writing everyday is very rewording and very satisfying to anyone who feels the need to write and to share their ideas, thoughts, fantasies or specific information with others.
The actual process of writing is a process of creating something new and maybe even valuable to others. How rewording it is in reality - you can only discover by consistent writing. Do write!
Elena Ornig
