WORDCRAFT!

A Guide to Making Stories

Words are quite simply the most powerful tool human beings have. If you can conquer words and make them work for you, you will have the power to move people to tears or laughter, anger or despair. Words can charm and beguile, disturb and disgust. Words can incite a nation to war and revolution, and they create bridges that can cross the chasms that separate all people.

'All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut or you can drug with words.' Amy Lowell

The Three 'T's' of Writing

Quite simply, these are talent, technique and tenacity. Talent is something you are born with, technique is something you can acquire, and tenacity is about hanging in there despite all the rejection slips. Surprisingly many writers get by with only a small amount of talent, a fair amount of technique, and lots of tenacity. If you have all three, you'll be unstoppable.

Tips for Improving Your Writing Technique

• Read as much and as widely as you can. The more you read, the more finely you will hone your instinctive understanding of what works and what doesn't and why. You will also be feeding your mind!
  
  
• Write every day if you can (it is like a pianist playing scales - the more you write, the more fluidly you write and the easier it seems). Also, writing begets writing. The more you write, the more you want to write – ideas will start coming all the time and inspiration will spark.
  
  
• Enrol in a writing course at your local writers centre – the NSW Writers Centre is in Rozelle (02) 9818 1327 - or at the Centre of Continuing Education, or a local college or TAFE.
  
  
• Read books about writing and publishing – there are literally hundreds on the market so borrow a pile from your local library or browse through the writing section at a good bookstore. Some suggestions:
  
  
  • Steering the Craft, Ursula le Guin
  • On Writing, Stephen King
  • Take Joy: A Writer's Guide to Loving the Craft, Jane Yolen
  • Making Stories, Sue Woolfe and Kate Grenville
  • Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster
  • The Art of Fiction, David Lodge
  • Letters to A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
  • A Room of One's Own, Virginia Wool
    
    
• Join or form a writing group. The NSW Writers Centre has a regular group that meets on Friday nights. Writing groups can be great motivators, because you need to prepare something for presentation every week, and also brings you in contact with other people who can support you and critique your work.
  
  
• Subscribe to writing magazines and literary journals, especially in your main area of interest (i.e. if wanting to write fantasy, subscribe to fantasy magazines such as Aurealis) These magazines accept unsolicited stories for publication so once you have an idea of what style and structure they are looking for (i.e. length of story), then submit some of your stories for possible publication. This will give you a chance to practice your tenacity!
  
  
• Try and be very observant of the world and people around you - listen hard so you learn to write dialogue that sounds like people really speak - watch closely so that you see all the different mannerisms and idiosyncracies that people have - think clearly and deeply so you have something worthwhile to write about - and maybe even something new to communicate.

"The most solid advice to a writer is this, I think: try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough." - William Saroyan.

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