Fiction Writers

How does a writer learn to write fiction? Does it start with a captivating children's story read to you by your mother? How about when you get hooked on Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys (yes, I admit I'm dated), or maybe something a bit more adult - Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Salinger, Dickens, Poe? Does it start in high school English class?

If your're like me, you were assigned numerous essays and reports, term papers, theses and such during your school years. You may have been required to write fiction pieces in a creative writing class or as part of a special project in your history class. But if you enjoyed the writing assignments, sooner later you found yourself writing for pleasure - even if you were the only person who actually read the material.

My first literary piece was a mystery entitled "The Mystery of the Lost Skull," which I presented to my startled parents when I was nine. I think my mother still has it tucked away with her high school yearbooks, the petrified corsage from her weekend at Harvard, and my sister's first baseball mitt. (I come from a long line of pack rats). I'm descended from a prolific writer of fiction, too, but he died in 1932 so I can't pick his brain to help me hone my writing skills. Hope some of his talent rubbed off on me.

Being an avid reader is helpful if you're an aspiring writer. But the question is: how do those terrific writers do it? How do they grab you? How do they scare you and keep you awake at night or make you cry over obstacles keeping the lovers apart? I want to do that! I want to be Nora Roberts or James Patterson or Stephen King or Anne Rice, or maybe Jane Austen. So I repeat: how does a writer learn to write [good] fiction?

My guess is - just write, write your heart out. Read authors whose stories captivate you and try to mimic their style, their formats. Take every class or presentation you can fit in your schedule. Write some more. Have your attempts critiqued. Revise, Revise, Revise. Absorb critical comments and put recommendations to work. Submit to contests and 'friendly' publishers. WRITE. ENJOY!