# 3.3 Learn through writing

Figure 7

If you don’t start to write, you won’t write. It sounds like advice which is too obvious to repeat but many people talk a good story or book. Comparatively few begin.

It’s important to be bold, to start. Sometimes stories ‘keep’ – only you know when something is ready to be written. But often stories can be lost by waiting for the ideal moment to write them down.

Remember, unlike many other kinds of work, writing is your training. A doctor trains for years before qualifying; a writer’s training is the writing itself. Without writing, a person can’t ‘become’ a writer. To say that a person has ‘a great book inside them’ might be true, but it isn’t saying anything more than that there are great stories everywhere, in everything, wherever you look, just waiting to be told. The trick is to tell them. Only that way do they ever become ‘stories’.

Become your own best judge: the aim is to discover your kind of writing.

OpenLearn - Start writing fiction: characters and stories
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