Anyone can be a great writer. If you haven’t written anything before, don’t worry, just start writing today. Your first draft will always be of low quality, don’t be embarrassed and upset. Don’t care about what people will say. Don’t care about people laughing at you. You are one million times better then someone who never wrote anything in his/her life and is laughing at you. People who usually laugh at you haven’t achieved anything in their lives, and they are now scared of your success. Therefore, they want to stop you before you become an exceptional writer. Nobody can be an outstanding writer by birth, we all have to start somewhere. If you see my first piece of writing, you will probably laugh. May be many people laughed, but did I stop? No I didn’t stop and I will never stop. I will keep writing because I want to be one the greatest writers around, I know what it takes to be a great writer. In this blog I will share with you the main qualities of a great writer. If you develop these qualities, you will soon be regarded as one of the finest writers around. The qualities are as follows;
READ TO OBSERVE
The exceptional writers are continuous readers. They read something everyday. They read and observe the writing style of other writers. They don’t just read to increase their knowledge, but they also read to observe other people’s writing style. They carefully analyze how different authors start their articles or paragraphs, how they end their articles, and how they structure the body of the article. They also observe what kind of vocabulary they use and how many illustrations do they use. They look at every single thing the other writers do, just like many actors look at the other actors how they perform, then eventually they become outstanding actors themselves. The keen observation skills of a writer don’t mean that they are cheating or plagiarizing. Their observation is for the purpose of learning from others and giving respect to other authors.
DISCIPLINED
The great writers are extremely disciplined when it comes to their writing. They have scheduled a particular hour of each day for their writing. No matter what happens, they don’t change their writing schedule. They are very disciplined with their schedule. They write it every single day. They know that if they skip a single day of writing, they will be rusty with their skills. Their daily routine of writing is like their training session of a sportsman. Like the world champion sportsmen practice their sports skills every day, the great writers who want to be the champions of writing, write every single day.
CONTINUOUS LEARNERS OF WRITING
The greatest writers around the globe are continuous learners of writing. They understand that writing like any skill, is an art and skill that can never be fully learned. They understand that there is always room for improvement, because no one can be perfect. They continuously take classes and listen to lectures and read books on writing and writing style. They have a library in their homes and offices full with different books on writing and writing style. The average and below average writers think they “know it all” and they don’t even know that there are books available and courses available to teach you to write.
LANGUAGE AND VOCABULARY LEARNERS
Another outstanding quality the great writers have is the passion they have for language learning. They are continuous learners of language they usually write in and are punctual in learning vocabulary of that language. They understand that a great writer has a vast vocabulary of words. They make it a habit to increase their vocabulary and learn grammar and language regularly. They are not ashamed to read grammar books again and again. That is why they are the best writers.
MASTERS OF THEIR SPECIALTY
The last important quality the best writers have is the mastery of their subject. They write about some topic right? Whether it is history, science, arts etc. They master their field, they become a life long learners of their specialty as well. They understand that there is no short cut to success, therefore, they do their best to read as much as possible about their own specialty. This is that one particular quality that can supersede all other qualifies, the reason being, when they read about their specialty, they observe the writing style, they observe the vocabulary, they observe they style of writing, they observe the language used. Therefore, if one just develops this one habit, he/she can be an outstanding writer. Reading in their specialty increases their knowledge in their field, hence, they have more ideas and information to share and write. The more they know the more urge they have to share it with others. As one of the famous philosophers rightly said, “When you know something, you will be given the power to say something”.
ESSENCE:
Being a continuous life long student makes you an expert in the eyes of the world. But you always remain a student. Keep learning, and never stop growing.
Dr. Hassaan Tohid
