How to be a great writer

"To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour." - William Blake

Greatness is closer than you think. All it takes is humility, hard-work, and a penetrating eye.

Great writers are able to see the potential all around them. It's all too easy for us to look elsewhere for a 'great' story, having little faith in ourselves and our own world. If we can't see the dramatic all around us we're not looking hard enough. It's only by reining in our boundaries and focusing our attentions close to home we'll really begin on the path of writing something truly great. Here are some ideas on how to do that.

Take yourself seriously

You may think your life has been boring, your experience trivial, your talents limited. Think again. You cannot know everybody, but you can know yourself. Your life, your experience, is as valid as anybody else's. In truth, it's more so, because you know it intimately and it's unique to you. This also applies to your emotional responses to the world around you. Want to know how your characters will react to a certain situation? First ask yourself how you would react.

Don't patronise readers

Take the reading public seriously. Don't dismiss the fact that they'd rather read Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown than your masterpiece as ignorance. They read that stuff because they like it. Read and understand why. If you think you can write better than Messrs. Brown and Larsson then you should be able to assimilate what they are doing successfully into your own writing without compromising.

Don't pander to them either

Respect them, but don't pander to them. You may write something sellable, but you won't write something great.

Keep learning

The moment you think you know it all is the moment you stagnate. To be a great writer you must be forever a student. Always look to learn. Always look to understand. The truth is better formed in a question than an answer. Ask Socrates.

See majesty in the mundane

Greatness is not so much what you write about, but how you write about it. Don't try and write about great things – try and write about things well. Universality is not achieved by talking about great, sweeping, abstract concepts, but by making detailed and personal observations.

Genre, medium, subject-matter are no hindrance

Despite what Edward Docx might say about it. Here's a much more sensible article on the subject.

Technique is the first step toward art

Learning the craft will not limit you. Don't kid yourself that it will stifle your imagination or hinder your talent. Understanding the craft of writing will provide you with a platform on which to launch your ideas and provide you with methods to best express them. Of course, some advice is nonsense or irrelevant to the story you want to tell – but it's your job to know the difference. That doesn't mean you don't have to do the graft. It's only when you are truly fluent in the craft that you can transcend it. Or dismiss it.

Enriching your story-world

Ever read a book where it teems with life, where you can really feel that things are happening beyond the page, as if you're viewing a window on a world that lives and breathes whether you read about it or not?

More importantly, is your writing like that?

Because it should be, as this is one of the three techniques that trump every other in writing.

So how do we go about achieving that? It's simpler than you might imagine

Don't show the details, know them

Convincing worlds aren't about dumping everything you've researched or made up onto the page. Showing the full extent of your world doesn't make it impressive, it makes it small and knowable. What you reveal about your world in your story should really only be the tip of the iceberg.

This doesn't mean you don't have to do the work – the more you research your supporting material the more you'll achieve that 'world beyond the pages' feel. If you can fit all the material you've created in the book then it's likely you haven't done enough work at best, that you're boring your reader senseless at worst.

Don't just write with words

Take pictures, draw maps, invent languages. It makes a change, develops your world, and you're less likely to use that kind of work directly in the text. If you have a picture of your protagonist's garden, you know the exact layout of his house, the clothes he wears, how he reacts when he burns his toast, then that knowledge will show without you having to detail it.

Best thing of all, if you have that kind of material then you can focus on the story when you write it. More than likely if you've done that level of research, the story will write itself.

Produce a guidebook to your world

Ever played role-playing games? Ever run them? Do you even know what they are?

Writing material for a role-playing game is an interesting challenge - you don't know the main characters or the main narrative - these are created by the players themselves. All you can do is invent and detail the world, populate it with deep and interesting characters, present challenging scenarios and give the players a reason to be there. This forces a distinction between the story-world and the narrative - it encourages the writer to imagine the world dislocated from the story that will happen within it – particularly useful if you're planning a series.

Take a holiday

Sometimes you'll feel drained by developing your characters, exhausted with working out the intricacies of your plot – that's the perfect time to start travelling, discovering, and detailing your story-world.

And the cool thing is, your narrative and characters will be the better for it.

Playing to your writing strengths

Being good is not good enough anymore. With the world splurging words out everywhere it's difficult enough to get noticed without making it harder than it needs to be. Life is too short and the competition too tough not to be fully exploiting your talent and show-casing it as effectively as possible.

Here's how to find out if you're taking the path of least resistance to your next publishing deal.

Are you enjoying your writing?

Is your writing more like hard work than the fulfilling vocation it needs to be? Perhaps you've set the wrong goal. Ploughing through a multi-narrative war epic spanning 6 generations and 4 continents may not be the right choice if what you really enjoy writing is situation comedy. Don't kid yourself – writing is hard work and takes effort – but if it's no fun at all you're never going to get anywhere. Make sure your subject matter and characters move and excite you.

Are you writing in the right genre?

Does that potential Booker long-list candidate you're trying to write keep turning into comedy chipmunk-porn despite your best efforts? Perhaps the chipmunks are worth pursuing. If you're trying to be serious but your voice keeps cracking jokes, or trying to be funny but it's depressing – then perhaps it's time to stop fighting and roll with it. What we are and what we'd like to be are not necessarily the same thing – get your foot in the door with something half-decent first.

Have you chosen the right medium?

Perhaps your dialogue sings but your prose is like death. Perhaps your internal monologues are transcendental but your characters two-dimensional. Do you conjure scenes or landscapes? Do you imagine visually or linguistically? Ditch the screen-play if internal-monologues are your strength. Stop writing for the stage if your dialogue sucks. Sure – develop the weaker side of your game but play to your strengths before anything else. There's no point in jabbing away with that wimpy left if it's your right-hook that knocks 'em dead.

But I always wanted to write for film not comics, says the bone-headed writer – but, if the comic book is good enough, Hollywood will come calling.

Are you utilising your connections?

Are you married to Steven Spielberg but determined to make a name for yourself on your own? Please. Work every connection you have. You can always divorce them once you've made it.