“Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind”
-Virginia Woolf
It takes a lot of patience and an innate love for expressing thoughts and imaginations in the form of words, in order to achieve excellence in writing. A good writer must first be an avid reader. Developing one’s bank of vocabulary, and learning various idioms and writing techniques can be only done through exposure to various other masterpieces written by great authors in the past.
The simple writing techniques that English tuition teachers and English school teachers share with students
There are some key tips that aspiring writers should keep in mind in order to enhance their writing.
Target Audience
Making one’s writing stay relevant to the present is important even when the context is set in a historical past. The emotions and hardships of the past cannot be truly felt unless it’s contrasted against the challenges and privileges being experienced by mankind in the present. Everyone is more bothered about the events going on right now, than about what happened a decade ago.
To ensure that your writing coveys the right messages and emotions, it is of paramount importance to decide on who your target audience are. That way, your writing will be more structured and sensible.
Clarity
Some sort of privacy in the mind is always needed for introspection. Silence needs to be created within for self-expression to take place. Mahakavi Bharathiyar (a Tamil writer, poet, journalist, Indian independence activist, social reformer and polyglot) had once said that he who has clarity in his mind, will have clarity in the words he utters (vaguely translated from the Tamil Language).
Clarity is not just about the way the sentence is structured. It’s also about the concept or idea that the writer intends to convey. No matter how complex the matter may be, it has to be explained in a logical and systematic manner for readers to easily grasp and make sense of it.
Chronology
Some of the greatest writers of this era and in the past have shown a great amount of skill in using time and chronology to their advantage. Some writers love to jump back and forth in the timeline to bring across different pieces of information, build the arc of a character, or even keep the readers up on their toes by making them think about the storyline.
In a story, under what seems to be a calm setting, a great amount of turbulence can be shown through simple ways like highlighting a timeframe in a character’s journey and giving special attention to that. Flashbacks, anticipations, and imaginations that have tension and suspense weaved in them will keep readers engaged.
Managing Writer’s Block
Treat an idea of yours as a seed that falls into the garden of your mind. One day in the right time and place, with the right nourishments (through the books your read and the discourse you engage yourself in), the right words will sprout. Writing down small notes in a diary will help. Soon enough they will adhere to one another, and coalesce into something unexpectedly beautiful.
Sometimes it may seem eccentric to translate certain thoughts in our minds into a logically crafted sentence. It may sound right in the mind but when put it down on paper it may be absurd. The only way to overcome this is to give it some time; let it stay in your diary, and one day, it will come in handy in the least expected way.
Practice
Expressing your thoughts without distortion or dishonesty requires lots of practice. You need the right words to build a momentary illusion for your readers, for them to experience the emotions and even the physical pain and pleasures of characters through the pages of the book.
Like how an artist would add textures to his painting by using techniques like combing or stenciling, a writer needs to be able to add textures to his writing by subtly adding layers to his characters.
The only way to get better at this is to allow room for spontaneity, to allow yourself to be surprised by your own imaginations, and to always be ready to work on constructive criticisms to better yourself at every step of the way!