In the past, I've written a few different thoughts on how to build an active and successful blog that has regular traffic and obtains a consistent readership base. It has occurred to me recently, mainly based on one particular reader asking for additional writing advice, that I've never really written any sort of blog that contains any opinions on the subject of writing itself. What makes a good writer? How does someone become one? Can anyone be a good writer or do you have to have some sort of natural gift or talent to learn it? I know a wide variety of people on Gamespot. Some I would cIassify as excellent writers. Others, I'd call fair. Others probably rate below that. Writing is ultimately a very subjective discipline. What makes for good writing will vary a bit based on whom you talk to. The advice that I am about to give here is a mixed bag. Some of it comes from teachers I've had over the years, some from friends, but ultimately, it is what I have found works for me personally. Others might find it worthless and to those I suppose I can only accept that each of us finds our own way and what works for me may not be the correct path for them. However, these thoughts have helped me. If they are of value to you who read this then I am glad and wish you well. Practice, practice, practice. Yes, I know it is cliche. As I told Yeah_Write recently, just because something is cliche does not automatically mean it is of no worth. Some thoughts and ways of expression become cliché for a reason. A certain piece of advice can be both cliché and correct at the same time. This is one of them. Practice, endless and repetitious practice, can do nothing but improve a person's writing. But it only works if it is something that I like to call Perfect Practice. Perfect Practice, by my definition, is practice wherein you learn something, anything, that helps you do a better job next time. Imagine for a minute that you are fighting a boss in a video game that you are playing, and you get killed very quickly. You are frustrated and think that the game is unfair. So you try fighting the boss again after a quick reload. You die just as quickly. True, you are practicing fighting that boss. But without learning something from your practice all you're doing is wasting your time. Unless you learn something, no matter how minor, from your practice then that practice is worthless. Maybe you learn that the boss in question has a counter move when you use a certain spell or attack? If you learn even that, then you are that much closer to your objective. It is the same with your writing. Don't just write again and again for the sake of getting in "practice". Focus on one particular flaw that you see in your writing and practice not making that one mistake. It could be something as minor as your having a tendency to deploy fragment sentences, or not using commas in the right places. Maybe it is something else. Ultimately, it is something different for everyone. Pick one thing and practice that until it becomes a habit, and you will have employed Perfect Practice. Have something to say The best writers that I have seen always write with a message that they want to convey. They don't always come right out and say it. Indeed, often times they don't express it openly at all but lead the reader around by the nose without the reader even realizing it until that very reader has accepted the truth of the message wholly without realizing it. (Next section will contain spoilers to "The Dark Knight" Batman movie.) The recent "Dark Knight" Batman movie is a picture perfect example of this. Some of the coded messages in that movie would surprise a lot of people if they stopped to think about them. Ultimately, that movie is, in many ways, a coded endorsement of much of what the current Bush Administration in the United States has tried to accomplish.



Batman, the hero of the movie, does not act like a hero for much of the story. He breaks the law over and over again. He extradites the mob money man from Hong Kong by force in violation of international treaties. He beats up a crime suspect in custody. He spies on millions and millions of people in his efforts to track down the Joker. And for these things, and several other examples in the movie, he is lionized. Meanwhile, the man who attempted to play it by the book, the politician that Batman professes to admire, Harvey Dent, eventually fails and has that which he most loves taken from him because he wasn't willing to get his hands truly dirty. He then turns into a despicable villain in his own right, Harvey "Two Face". While Batman, the guy who was willing to break any rule, rewards the trust of the guy who follows him by giving up his spying capabilities when they are no longer needed.



In other words, the message is clear. Only the people who are willing to do anything and everything it takes to take down the "bad guys" can be trusted, and we as a society repay that trust by turning on them instead of leaving them alone to do their jobs. Regular politicians who want to play by the rules are two-faced scum bags who will fold and become one of the bad guys when the chips are down. Can anyone say "Vice President Dick Cheney"? Right now he is universally hated the world over, yet most people leaving their theaters probably did so thinking about how wonderful Batman is, despite the fact that Batman's behavior was an unspoken endorsement of the very methods that they hate in Dick Cheney. Ultimately, that is my point. The writing of the new Batman movie was wonderful because it had a message that it wanted to convey and it expressed that message in a way that was both entertaining and got it accepted. People who stop and think will probably realize that the comic book bad guy "The Joker" is just that; a comic book character. Maybe, just maybe, methods that work and are appropriate to battle a comic book bad guy may not be appropriate in the real world, but how many people will think that way? Most will probably, without even realizing it, look marginally more favorably upon the next time they read a news story about lawbreaking in the pursuit of stopping terrorism. Writing becomes better when you have strong feelings and emotions behind it, but can harness those feelings and emotion rather than just ranting away. Yes, a love song will be better if you're thinking about someone you love when you write it. Yes, writing about something sad will be aided if you are in a sad mood when you wrote it. This is the nature of the world. Feeling something very strongly helps us expressing it, but only if you can control your emotions and focus them in a positive direction. I'm not saying all of your writing should be some sort of propaganda piece. But your writing should have something important to say, or, at the very least, something important to you. Realize that you suck That's a bit of a blunt way of putting it, I know, but stay with me a moment and I will explain. When I was about nineteen years old I enjoyed freeform roleplaying on online chats dedicated to that very purpose. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, freeform roleplaying is an entirely chat based way of roleplaying that is comprised of two or more people writing back and forth in response to each other in a chat describing their actions. Here's a very simplified example. Player 1: Gondalore the Mighty, Paladin of TightyWhitey the Pure God, swings his two-handed broadsword in a vicious overhand arcing motion in an attempt to decapitate the foul thief who attempted to pick his pocket. Player 2: Fast Eddie, being a master thief, recognizes quickly that his pickpocket attempt has gone awry. With his spectacular agility he is able to throw himself to the side to avoid the attack, hearing the blade whistle in the air just above his head. Realizing that the jig his up, he takes off running to try and get away. Player 1: Gondalore bellows out a challenge, "Hold thief! Face thee the divine justice for your treacherous deed." He then attempts to chase after the nimble thief, huffing and puffing mightily in his full plate armor. You get the idea. Anyway, when I was there I met an incredible writer. She wrote posts that were amazingly vivid, incredibly moving and astonishingly detailed. The characters she created and showed off in her writing were wonderful and alive in the way she expressed them. I was a rather prominent member of my particular roleplaying community, but felt that she could probably teach me a thing or two and after a few months when we had become friends, I went to her for advice. We chatted and she talked about the people whose writing she liked in the community. She specifically did not mention my name. Being young and more than a little arrogant (and why not? I was a popular and renowned roleplayer in the community in question) I asked her why she hadn't mentioned me. Well, she replied that it was because my writing sucked. Understand that I was in awe of this woman and she told me flat out that she thought my writing was awful. At the time it was a pretty crushing experience to learn that, yes, I sucked. She pointed out innumerable problems that proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I did indeed stink as a writer. I think that if I hadn't liked her as much as I did, and admired her writing as much as I did, I'd have had a very difficult time accepting it.



I did eventually accept the criticism. I stopped thinking that I was a great writer already and focused on where my writing was weak. It was the first step I ever took towards actually becoming a better writer. Today, I remain profoundly grateful towards this person for her courage and friendship, which she willingly risked to express how bad I was. Develop your own sty.le Don't imitate someone else's. At the end of the day, each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses as a writer. While there are certain base attributes that everyone needs to have in order to be competent, such as good spelling and grammar, once the basics are mastered everyone should develop a st.yle all their own. Too often, the mistake I see is the attempt to mimic the st.yle of a favorite writer that they know of. A writer always has their favorite books or authors, and often they grow so attached to how those works impacted them that they strive to imitate the writer in question. Sometimes this is intentional. Other times it is done unknowingly. It never works.



I'm not saying you shouldn't appropriate good traits of a particular writer. Why not learn from someone who has mastered a particular method of expression? But you shouldn't try to be that writer. It almost always fails. How can you be better at being someone else than that person is at being him or herself? I'm not saying it is impossible, but not only is it extremely difficult, but its also very empty. After all, if the only reason you're a good writer is because you tried to be like (insert writer name), then will you ever feel like you are a good writer? I wouldn't. I'd just feel like (insert writer name's) shadow. Well, that's it for now. I'd write a nice conclusion wrapping all of this up, but I don't feel like it, and after how damned long this blog post has gotten I doubt anyone here feels like reading one. Either take the advice or don't. Now shoo! Go get some Perfect Practice in.