So...does writing just come naturally?

 

Is writing instinctual?

When I asked my younger sisters the first thing they would like to know if they started to write, they gave me two similar answers:

1. How do you make your writing feel less awkward?
2. How do you get good grammar and spelling?

The truth is that there's no formula except to write more and write often. Of course, it's also important to read, but your writing will not improve unless you write. There's no magic and there's no secret.

When I started writing, there was nothing beautiful or spectacular about my little stories. My dialogue didn't even have quotation marks. Capital letters were rare. My handwriting was all over the place. 

When you dive into the vast and beautiful craft of story-making, you're going to be bad at it for a while. It's the same as if you started to play the piano. You can't expect yourself to be able to sight read fifty pages of advanced classical music as soon as you sit down on the piano bench, can you? But eventually, you'll be able to do things you could never have imagined.

The problem is that a lot of people don't have the confidence or the determination to stick with it until they get past the "awkward awful horrid writing" stage. Instead, they stop after a couple tries and brush themselves off as untalented.

In order to prove my point, I will provide a brief excerpt from a story somebody I wrote as a child:

Once thair was 3 chillgren, a mom and a dad. theiy had a cat But it got vary sick and we had to put her down. But! p.s (the cat was 19. so the family soon got bored.) at not having a pet. so they started looking at dogs But all the dog plasis (unintelligible) that. theiy had kid's and the poo's wer big. But this famaly was serprised becas theiy had lot's of expereins so theiy (unintelligible).

Even if you ignore the obvious spelling and grammar mistakes, this story doesn't even make sense.

That story was probably written when I was about eight years old. Now, here is an excerpt from another story that I wrote at thirteen years old:

A smile danced at the edges of Miriam’s lips. She lifted the lid gently off of the box and took out the foam which covered the Shoes. For a moment, there was pure joy on her face. Then it crumbled: it was as if she was an aluminium can, and somebody had crushed her. She held up the specially constructed shoe, the lightning bolt along the side glowing faintly, the scarlet laces tied up in a perfect bow. It was brand new: the most coveted style that year, and by far the most beautiful.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a huge improvement. (Unfortunately, that story was written for an assignment in English class, and the plot had to be based off of a short story we'd read, so I'll never be able to publish the whole thing.)

In order to get that much better, all I had to do was read more and write more.

(And pray. Don't forget to pray. That's like forgetting to breathe, and you can't write for a long time without breathing, can you?)

If you're doubting that you could ever be good at writing--or anything else, for that matter--remember that we all start out really, really awful at whatever we do. All we have to do is keep going.