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The 5 Disciplines of the Craft of Writing
Each of these is a never-ending practice for the writer.
The biggest mistakes starting writers make almost exclusively revolve around these disciplines. I should know, I struggled with all of them myself.
Similarly the most significant improvement to a piece of writing happens when these factors are more deeply understood and polished. In short, the practice of these factors is the 80/20 (or the 20% of writing that can get you 80% of the way to a great story).
I know that’s quite the claim, but let’s not pretend the last 20% isn’t the steepest part of the mountain we climb as writers. Without these factors even the most organized story will struggle to land with readers, or get the kind of emotional reactions we all desire as practitioners of the craft.
Show & Tell
This is the most common challenge for any new writer, a challenge immortalized by the widely repeated maxim “Show, don’t tell.”
In general this is not bad advice, and understanding the execution of a good “show” rather than a “tell” is perhaps the most powerful discipline any writer will ever master for crafting a compelling story.
In practice however, those who have delved too greedily and too deep into the realm of…
