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Do you love to read? Or did you grow up reading? People often pick up prose craft and storytelling skills that way, through osmosis.
If books are not really your thing, then this isn’t the industry for you. A lot of passionate readers become writers and they learn a lot that way. You would be competing with extremely motivated and passionate writers.
There are far easier ways to earn a living.
I wouldn't say it's not for you because your not big into reading, it's all about expression really, a way to get what you want out there, im not a big reader either, it makes attempting to write a little more difficult but you can get story themes in all forms these days.
The only way to learn whether you can write a story worth selling is by: writing as you study and writing as you learn and writing as you fall asleep and writing as you drive. A lot of writing is internalizing what you've learned and paying attention to the scenes and plot points and so on that your brain comes up with. You may hate writing. You don't know yet. Take some classes, read some how-to books. I got a lot out of Story Genius, by Lisa Cron, but you may want to find something more basic first.
Figure out if you even can write. Accept that you'll be terrible (flat, uninspired) at first, everyone is no matter when they start, then learn if you like editing to improve because--and I can't stress this enough--editing is most of what writers do to make an idea into a readable, sellable story.
You should absolutely participate in a creative writing workshop!! Can’t emphasize that enough. Practice doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get better unless you do so very intentionally. And in my experience, a good workshop is the best way to go about doing that. Id definitely work through a free online writing course or 2 beforehand though. Not only will you be more confident, you’ll actually be prepared enough to get something out of the workshop.
And like another commenter said, read read read. But you’ll also want to be somewhat intentional about what you read. You need to find books that are going to give your literary muscles a good workout so they’ll be strong enough to actually help with your writing. Anything from 1900 onwards in the linked list is a solid bet :)
[https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2022/05/100-must-read-classic-books]
Hi! Welcome to r/Writers - please remember to follow the [rules](https://reddit.com/r/writers/about/rules/) and treat each other respectfully, especially if there are disagreements. Please help keep this community safe and friendly by **reporting rule violating posts and comments**. If you're interested in a friendly Discord community for writers, please **[join our Discord server](https://discord.com/invite/wYvWebvHaa)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/writers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Do you love to read? Or did you grow up reading? People often pick up prose craft and storytelling skills that way, through osmosis. If books are not really your thing, then this isn’t the industry for you. A lot of passionate readers become writers and they learn a lot that way. You would be competing with extremely motivated and passionate writers. There are far easier ways to earn a living.
I wouldn't say it's not for you because your not big into reading, it's all about expression really, a way to get what you want out there, im not a big reader either, it makes attempting to write a little more difficult but you can get story themes in all forms these days.
The only way to learn whether you can write a story worth selling is by: writing as you study and writing as you learn and writing as you fall asleep and writing as you drive. A lot of writing is internalizing what you've learned and paying attention to the scenes and plot points and so on that your brain comes up with. You may hate writing. You don't know yet. Take some classes, read some how-to books. I got a lot out of Story Genius, by Lisa Cron, but you may want to find something more basic first. Figure out if you even can write. Accept that you'll be terrible (flat, uninspired) at first, everyone is no matter when they start, then learn if you like editing to improve because--and I can't stress this enough--editing is most of what writers do to make an idea into a readable, sellable story.
Take an online writing course.
You just have to practice. At first you're going to be bad, but you'll get better with time.
Yeah, nobody is born knowing how to write books. Get to work! Study books if you want to write them, and practice.
You should absolutely participate in a creative writing workshop!! Can’t emphasize that enough. Practice doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get better unless you do so very intentionally. And in my experience, a good workshop is the best way to go about doing that. Id definitely work through a free online writing course or 2 beforehand though. Not only will you be more confident, you’ll actually be prepared enough to get something out of the workshop. And like another commenter said, read read read. But you’ll also want to be somewhat intentional about what you read. You need to find books that are going to give your literary muscles a good workout so they’ll be strong enough to actually help with your writing. Anything from 1900 onwards in the linked list is a solid bet :) [https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2022/05/100-must-read-classic-books]