Writing - Learn from the Masters

There are certain people who are regarded as past masters of their art - we can learn from them.

Writing – learn from the masters There are lessons to be learned from reading the ‘masters’ of the trade.  You may not like Shakespeare’s style, or think Dickens is dull, but they can teach us a lot.  Try it, you might be surprised.

Once you have decided that you want to write – read everything you can lay your hands on.  Not just in your preferred genre – stretch yourself and dip into some Charlotte Bronte, some Agatha Christie – they’re considered old fashioned now, but they’re still being read, and watched as movies, by 1000s.

They all have something we now call the X-factor, which is something indefinable, impossible to pin down.  If I could just put my finger on it and bottle it… 

Moving on… the X-factor of course is not just one thing – it is different things to different people.

The Brontes were past masters at getting under the skin of that genteel veneer of their provincial contemporaries. Agatha Christie’s plots were peerless, if somewhat contrived. And Dickens dug the dirt out of the gutter like no-one had ever seen.  Even the much-mocked Barbara Cartland has a loyal following, and she has to be doing something right – try one of her books, you never know.

A few of the modern masters are, in my opinion, Fay Weldon, Ben Elton, Lynda La Plante, Jeff Lindsay, Julian Fellowes – my list is long.  We all have, or should have, our own lists.

Read and study how they craft their words – we all have the same tools.  Apparently the 1,000,000th word of the English language has just been added to our vocabulary.  So your toolbox overfloweth.   Remember Rembrandt only had the same tools as Salvador Dali – and look at the different ways they used them.