Stages of becoming better at writing
Do you want to improve the quality, effectiveness of your writing ? Your SMS, WhatsApp message, e-mail, Facebook posts should attract due attention and should get the required outcome ? It should get you more reputation, money.
From my long stint with writing as a student, researcher, content developer, writer, trainer, I find that the journey of becoming better at writing passes through the following four stages
Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Let's take a parallel. No one taught you grammar, vocabulary, usage of your mother tongue or local language, but are so good at it. Why ?
You heard right in your mother's womb, spoke it without caring to be right or wrong, read it in newspapers, hoardings, advertisements etc, started writing and gradually built it to what it is today.
However, in English, we expect to attend few classes, that too half heartedly and become a better writer. It will never happen that way.
Listening - Listening English news channels like BBC, CNN, Republic TV could be a good beginning. You may even listen to professional talks, presentations, available on YouTube, but listening English, correct English is the first step toward developing what is known as language sense.
Speaking - You need not be a world class orator, but certainly you can start speaking small sentences while alone. You may speak to yourself in front of a mirror. The audio in mobile is the best friend in this regard. Take a one page article and read it on a cellphone recorder. You will realise, we read it wrong even though it is in front of us. This will give you confidence. Today, starting from a 2 min audio, I have recorded 90 minute professional talks on video, without a slip of paper in hand and all in one take.
Reading - If you read others, others will read you. Even reading hoardings, advertisements, blogs is a nice way to develop good reading habits. I rarely read big, bulky, books. But never miss reading articles, posts, essays etc relevant to what I am writing about. There are countless articles, blog posts, on virtually anything. Start reading, you will suddenly find writing is a natural consequence as you start supporting, condemning, criticizing it.
Writing - Here again, begin small. Start replying messages, mails, posts. I have two Sims, so still before posting something serious, I post it to myself first. Read it, edit if needed and then post it. In writing all sensitive mails, I first mail it myself, read it, edit it and then mail.
Feel free to share your comments, experience, without caring much about its being grammatically perfect with best words in it.
You may comment here itself or send it to drpnmoghe@gmail.com
