C is for Craft

Mozart was a genius. His talent flowed without apparent effort. But Mozart had to learn his craft before he started composing. Same with writing, but the road to creative writing craft is less clear cut than learning scales and arpeggios.

Now, you don't have to have creative writing tuition or read shedloads of How To books to learn craft, and there are plenty of people out there who have successful writing careers without a single bit of formal teaching. What those people do is what writers have done over the past hundreds of years: read.

Most writers (all writers?) are fervent readers. Read, read, read and unconsciously you pick up a lot of craft techniques. There are other ways of learning craft techniques. Most writers (all writers?) are listeners and eavesdroppers. Most writers (all writers?) are curious about people and the world around them. Most writers (all writers?) are communicators - that's why so many have early careers in professions like acting, teaching, journalism.

For some writers, reading, listening, communicating etc is enough. For others, formally learning craft - whether from a book or a teacher - is a short cut. By craft I mean techniques such as:

Chapter ends and pacing, to control the reader experience.

Ways to heighten tension eg sentence/chapter length, action

Using action to enliven essentially passive description

Dialogue as a tool to convey character and characterisation

Language to add interest and colour to prose

Editing skills

Reading aloud to learn about rhythm and cadence

Knowing when to dramatise and when to summarise

Find yourself a teacher who can and will teach craft (not all creative writing teachers can or do). Failing that, read some books. My favourite book on craft technique is Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. Flair, talent, the stuff that Mozart was made of is something else. You get born with that. But we can all learn craft and, while we may not all be Mozarts (I'm certainly not) we can all be damn fine writers.