Totally Useful Tips #3

Artists are stealers.  Us artists steal and take and borrow from other artists to make our stuff.  It’s an important and vital part of how we operate.  We only get better at what we do if we go and practice, practice, practice.  However, we also only get better if we look at those whom are better (and worse) than us and learn from them.
Work with me here.
When we first told stories as kids, whether that be an adventure in the backyard or what happened at school at day, we were clunky and clutzy at best.  It was only by going through school, and by learning from our teachers that we learned how to speak better and how to learn to tell our stories better.  It was because we learn from whom are better than us that we learn to be better ourselves.
Now, at a certain point, we plateau.  Not saying that we don’t try to improve ourselves every day, (cause let’s face it, if we don’t try to improve ourselves every day then we kinda fail as humans), but we get to a point where we’re like: “Yeah, this is good enough.”
But for someone like me, my story crafting is never good enough.  I always want to improve myself and how I write.  It’s like some musician said that they weren’t going to practice anymore, or a bodybuilder wasn’t going to work out anymore.  We do this because we want to improve ourselves.  So that means practice, and that means we have to learn from those better from us.
So here are some tips.  That I thought up of, and not what I took away from some other Internet source…

1 - Read.
Just, read.  Is there anything more to do than that?  Read the authors you like.  Read the authors you kinda like.  Read the authors you don’t like.  Read in all the different genres.  Try reading new things.  If you don’t read, then you don’t know what the competition is doing and what the audience likes.  If you don’t read, then how can you see what story ideas have already been done so you don’t accidentally or intentionally plagiarize?

2 - Read.
Read.  Seriously, just read.  But also take notes.  What did you like?  What didn’t you like?  Jot it down and underline the passage.  If you are borrowing the book, post it notes will become your best friend.  If you own the book, why ain’t you underlining it?  Try using different post-its for different concepts.  Green is for good imagery, yellow is for dialogue, red is for fight scenes, blue is for character development… I think you get the point.

3 - Read.
Seriously, read.  If you don’t read, how can you be a writer?  If you don’t immerse yourself in the culture, how can you get better?  It’s like if I took a trip to the opposite side of the world and hid in my hotel room and did nothing at all.  WHAT’S THE POINT?  Go and explore!  Go and do!  In reading, we have that option without all of the hullabaloos of travel.

4 - Read.
I think you get the idea now.  I think you understand what I’m saying.  Kick back with a book and learn from the author.  Read the magazine rack (but like the good stuff, not the trashy gossip).  Read some short stories.  Read some nonfiction.  Read some poetry.  I’m pretty sure you get the picture.

That’s all I got for y’all today.  See y’all around.