The writer is not much different from a carpenter: one is making boards, the other is words. I will try to prove it. For all the time of my work, my work was somehow connected with writing texts. It was necessary to learn to write. I will try to share my experience in obtaining skills in this case.



On my way there were a variety of people writing professions: from editors, copywriters, writers just to real writers. He pestered everyone with a request to teach how to write, and a clear answer, how can he write? - I have not heard, but all the answers can be somehow ranked.
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"This is not given to all ..."

This is the worst answer. There are two reasons for this (optional): a) consciously or not a person sees you as a competitor b) a person does not own the technology, but uses techniques at the level of intuition.

"Well, this is art ..."

Any creativity or art, call it what you want, can be called a process, and how a process can be called technology. Few people own the technology of writing, and very few people speak and tell about it. No, this is not art, the artist has paints, technique, doesn’t he draw with air?

"Well, read something for an example ..."

You can read all my life, and write when? And if you read "Faust" - how can you write something after that? You feel like a voiceless midge that only needs to be silent and listen, that is, read. There are plenty of examples when a person who is not connected with writing in any way became a writer.

By luck, I met a writer who made a living than he wrote. He directed me to the right direction, that writing is the same profession or, more precisely, a craft.

How does mastery begin?

With exercises. For a writer, the most important and first exercise is to write an essay. This brief literary form is the basis for building large novels. For example, open Remark “On the Western Front without Change” - sit in a trench - an essay on half a page, half a page - an essay on the memory of a house, then half a page on bombing - from such an essay, Remark obtained thick novels. Anything can be a topic for an essay - a pillar, thoughts of a stray dog, and at least a passing day - an essay will be a diary entry. The size of the essay can be from a couple of sentences to several pages. An essay for a writer is also like an etude for an actor, like a play or a vocalise for a musician.

I will try to outline several principles that have helped me in mastering the craft:

1. Do not lie. Write only the truth. It's hard to explain - but you can't lie to yourself, otherwise people are not fools - they will see deception. It requires the skill not to lie at least to yourself, and not to others. There are 2 extremes: a) striptease (this includes the negative subconscious) b) fear at all to say something, because we are often without thinking time. No, write as sincerely as possible, even if you sincerely err, it will be your truth. But if you betray the truth that is inside of you - this is fraught not only for your texts, but also for your head.

2. Harmonious sounds. Write harmoniously. Consonance should be pleasant to the external and internal hearing. “Play or work - eat Mars boldly” - a combination of deaf and hissing is not the most pleasant thing in Russian. It is better to avoid such combinations: “Design - beauty in functionality” - this phrase is not functional, due to the monstrous combination of sounds. So you need to look for other options - they are, you just need to look. It is easy to check the harmoniousness - read what you wrote - if it cuts off hearing - rewrite.

3. Seven words in a sentence. Yes, yes, I know, a lot of people are running up now - they say, we have a rich and powerful one, that there are complex and complex sentences. Thank you, I know - complex sentences are beautiful, I do not argue, but we are talking about a beginning. Immediately write / play symphonies, immediately think / write with complex structures, and readable, moreover - so that it was pleasant to read them - no one takes up for this - it will not work. We must first learn to burn bricks, and then take on something more difficult. To write in long sentences - aerobatics, not every writer knows how. Recall the kilometer sentences from Tolstoy in War and Peace, not sure that all these phrases are inspiring. I advise you to once again listen and count the words: “my uncle has the most honest rules, when he was not seriously ill ...”, etc.

4. No inspiration. This word is so raped that it is just a shame to use it. There is an objective reality, and to think that something “from above” will fall into our heads, or on our heads - naively. We have a huge and powerful machine - the subconscious, it needs to be properly loaded, and it will give out high-quality and necessary things. I mean this: what questions do you ask? What are you thinking about? What are you reading? What are you dreaming about? How do you look at others, at the world? What do you have "cooked" in your head? - It depends on what and how you will issue on paper. A person “under inspiration” is the same as “under a high” - he doesn’t understand anything, is captured by his condition and doesn’t see anything around - you can drive a bicycle for a long time, or you can safely ride a truck. Inspiration is schizophrenia of a creative person, less inspiration.

Open up any memories of recognized classics about how they wrote. There you will not find a word about "inspiration". You will find information on how they set up the process. It is a technological process: how the thoughts were recorded, how they worked with the drafts, how and when they returned to the text, how they found topics for writing, how they processed and polished the text. That's what it is about, and not about inspiration, which you will never wait. It is necessary not to wait, but to work - and not inspiration will come, and you will write the text - there will already be something to which you can go back and finish, and there will not be empty thoughts.

Usually, all that was recorded when the stream was flowing requires a rigorous and rigorous check. After that, you need to calm down, and choose all the most valuable when you are no longer under the "inspiration". Sort of what "oh! I wrote such a cool thing! Wow, how cool! ”You call a friend to read his creation to him, and he, unfortunately, does not pick up the phone. Damn, this is a masterpiece, but with ... it doesn’t pick up the phone! Then you get up in the morning, you go to the toilet, your creation catches the eye, and you think - how good it is that you didn't pick up the phone yesterday ...

5. “Any fight starts with the first strike” - as my trainer said, any text begins with a shock phrase. Put in one sentence everything you want to say and more. Make it a slogan for your text. With a shock phrase, you put the point and lead the line - you illustrate / reveal / decode the shock phrase. For example, in the shock phrase to this text I laid down everything that I am proving, showing that the writer's craft is as earthly as all other professions. The shock phrase can consist of several words, and of one word: “Moscow. How much in this sound, for the heart of the Russian merged. " Shock phrase - Moscow. If you are in a conversation with the necessary intonation, feeling you will try to put all this in one word - then everyone will understand the meaning that you have invested. And here there is only a paper and a reader, you are not around to comment - so you need to put everything in the first phrase in order to set the desired tuning fork for the reader to read not your text. He already belongs to the reader, and he is free to read as he pleases.

The shock phrase, by the way, solves the eternal dilemma - “What should I write about?” And “Where to start?”. Come up with a shock phrase - and that’s it, everything’s further, the technical work of this shock phrase is written in the text.

6. During the writing of the text, you must make a discovery. If not done - throw the text into the basket. Learn something new for yourself, even seemingly from everyday objects. If your text is solid platitudes, throw it away.

7. Going beyond the form. Words in the text should be used so that you go beyond the ordinary meaning of words. It seems like in poetry - when the same words get a new meaning and sound. This item is difficult to explain, you need to work offline and examples. In a word, it is tied to the previous one: there is no discovery - it means that they did not go beyond the limits of the form, did not go beyond the limits of the form - there would be no discovery.

8. Appreciate the paper. In our age of terabytes it is difficult to explain. The paper was not so cheap, but generally free. And you imagine that the paper on which you want to write something was crafted from the skin of an antelope for a whole month. Here is one or a few people working for a month so that you could write something there, or even better, did you work hard for a long time to make this paper? After that, you will not write garbage, and you will think on the sand many, many times before you write something on such paper. And so! Sat down! Hit the keyboard - and voila! Wham! Weak, what are you, here you are, everything is ready. The word depreciates along with the paper. So for training it is better to write on paper and not on a computer - you will appreciate more paper and words, respectively. Habr, in this respect is also a very good thing - he wrote something wrong, there will be no right to retake, or you need to try very hard.

Please do not be surprised at the primitiveness of these principles - but they work. This is only the beginning, only the start, for the writer, so that he knows where to start, so that he has the technology to do something in his hands. It is clear that to become a great master observing only these principles is impossible, but it is quite possible to begin to master the craft.

Brain exercises

Another important exercise for the writer is to translate abstract things into concrete and vice versa. Those. if you are in a good mood - you have to write what is concrete about it (rapid heartbeat or something else), or something happened, you did something - you have to express for yourself the abstract conclusions, generalizations on this occasion. In the language of the Internet - online (thought) needs to be translated offline (specifics), and offline translated online.

Speaking of philosophy. Whether you like it or not, when you write, your philosophy will be visible. Therefore, most often writing is a discipline of the mind. If there are no slender judgments in your head, then do not harbor illusions - they will not be on paper either. If there are failures somewhere, then on paper they will be so clearly visible that it becomes very sick of these mistakes. But then there is a big plus - we can work with it.

Need to carry a notebook. Overlaid with pieces of paper. As one philosopher said: “If you didn’t write down the thought that came to you at that very second, it means you’ll never write again.” And do not amuse yourself with the illusions of the fullness of the head - check yourself, write on paper what you are thinking about - everything will immediately become clear.

What are the mistakes of novice writers?

The very first and most important: to be a writer. I mean - it will be a mistake to constantly remember “that I am a writer” and to pretend. No, you just need to write. Otherwise, this posturing is very quickly read and annoying. If you ask current writers - who they feel about themselves, many will simply say - I write everything and I get paid for it.

A good way to check your writings is to go with them on editorial boards, if they pay at least 10 dollars, then it is worth it. If not, you still need to continue.

I will say it again - these recommendations are not a panacea, this is something that personally helped me to start writing, and I sincerely believe that if a person wants to learn to write, he should treat writing as a craft. Of course, not all artisans become craftsmen, but without becoming an artisan, you will not have a single chance to become a master.

I do not want to pretend to be clever, and to say that these are all my ideas - this will not be true. There are books and sources from which some ideas are taken for this note. But I can’t give exact references - I don’t remember where I’m mine and what I rethought and pass on as mine. Therefore, just links:

Ayn Rand. Art fiction
Gustav Vodicka. Writing courses
Nora Gal. Word of the living and the dead
Ditmar Elyashevich Rosenthal. Practical stylistics of the Russian language

UPD from commentators (did not read):
Mario Vargas Llosa. Letters to a young novelist
Yuri Nikitin. How to become a writer
Leonid Kaganov. Lecture about ideas
He is. HOW TO CONFIRMATELY DESCRIBE IMPOSSIBLE
Vladimir Mayakovsky. How to make poems
Stephen King. How to write books