Lars Eighner's Homepage Writers' Workshop FAQ: Q. How can I improving my writing?

Q. How can I improving my writing?

A. The best thing you can do for your writing is to learn to revise effectively. Sure, some natural geniuses may never have to revise a word, but the number of writers who consider themselves geniuses must outnumber the true geniuses by a factor of thousand. And yes, some writers who practice revision for a long time, eventually learn to avoid most mistakes so that their first drafts do not need much revision. But everyone else needs to revise and revise and revise.

Putting a work through a spelling checker or a grammar checker is not revision. Of course you should examine your material for misspellings and typos. But that kind of checking is not what I mean by revision. Revision means changing words and phrases, and sometimes changing whole sentences and paragraphs. Almost everyone's writing needs this kind of revision.

Unfortunately, those who most need to revise are likely to lack the skills to revise effectively. A few have a highly inflated opinion of their work and will not consider changing a single golden word once they have blessed the world with it. Most other writers would like to improve their writing, but cannot do so because they cannot see what is wrong with what they have written--not that they are overly forgiving of their own mistakes, but that they do not know a mistake when they see one.