ON BECOMING A WRITER

ON BECOMING A WRITER
by HENRY TACIO

ALMOST always, when I meet people and they know that I am a
journalist, they usually asked the stale (to me) but important (to
them) question: "So, how did you become a writer?"

I don't want to become a broken record and have to explain again and
again. Well, when I was in high school, I discovered that I have this
knack for writing. Of course, anyone who can write is considered a
writer. But writing well is different.

Every time our English teacher gave us something to write for our
formal theme, I wrote it differently. I didn't know why then but I
want to be unique. Upon reading them, my classmates would tell me
that my writings were incorrect since they were very dissimilar to the
examples our teacher had given us.

When our teacher learned about it, she explained to our class. "His
writing is very different from the rest of you because he is writing
in his own style," she said. She then lectured on what style means.

However, my biggest "break" was when the same teacher asked me to
write an essay which would be submitted to a regional essay writing
contest. "Why me?" I scrupled. "I am still a junior student and I am
sure there are good contenders from the senior level."

But my teacher was adamant; she had already made up her mind: me or no
one else. After too much coaxing, I finally relented. Although I
emerged a loser in the contest (my very first!), it inspired me to
become a writer. I did it by honing my skill.

Not contented, I enrolled in a correspondence school. This was when I
was in college. I started writing for a national magazine.
Fortunately, my short piece was accepted. When it came out, my mother
bought several copies. As for myself, I couldn't believed saying my
name printed in a national publication.

Although I received several rejection slips after that, I never
thought of stopping what I had already started. Just like a wounded
soldier, the more I write articles and features. Until I found the
"gold" at the end of rainbow – this was when I started writing for the
Ramon Magsaysay awarded Press Foundation of Asia.

So much for that. A reporter, trying to track down the wellspring of
the creative process, asked Edna Ferber on why she writes. Her reply
was once startling and satisfying: "Because it is less agonizing to
write than not to write."

"The only important thing a writer needs is a subject," Brooks
Atkinson said. "What the reader hungers after is not accomplished
craftsmanship nor even correct grammar but a frank report of the
things a writer has done, seen, and thought. None of these can be
learned in the library or classroom. They have to be learned in the
unsheltered world of living where me get slivers of the truth beaten
into their heads."

"Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will
appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all,
accurately so they will be guided by its light," advises Joseph
Pulitzer.

Barbara W. Tuchman has the same recommendation: "No writing comes
alive unless the writer sees across his desk a reader, and searches
constantly for the word or phrase which will carry the image he wants
the reader to see, and arouse the emotion he wants him to feel.
Without consciousness of a live reader, what a man writes will die on
his page."

When writing, never be contented of what you have written. Read it
again and again. Revise while reading. And then revise again.
Margery Allingham admitted that she writes every paragraph four times:
"Once to get my meaning down, once to put in anything I have left out,
once to take out anything that seems unnecessary, and once to make the
whole thing sound as if I have only just thought of it."

According to Frank E. McElroy, to write what you want to say in a way
that it can be understood by other people is not easy. "It takes real
effort," he said. "Do your writing in four bite-size portions. Doing
one of these at a time makes your writing easier and your results more
effective."

McElroy suggests four steps: (1) Define your purpose and learn your
subject; (2) Organize your material in the light of your readers'
abilities and interests; (3) Write to best express yourself (and your
ideas); and (4) Edit and polish your writing so that it is easy to
read, is easy to understand, and is good English.

The Writer's Digest School in Cincinnati, Ohio share the following 20
rules for good writing: Prefer the plain word to the fancy, the
familiar word to the unfamiliar, nouns and verbs to adjectives and
adverbs. Better still prefer picture nouns and action verbs. Prefer
the simple sentence to the complicated.

Never us a long word when a short one will do as well. Master the
simple declarative sentence. Put the words you want to emphasize at
the beginning or end of your sentence. Use the active voice. Put
statements in a positive form. Vary your sentence length.

Use short paragraphs; vary the length of the paragraph.

Cut needles words, sentences, and paragraphs. Use plain,
conversational language. Write like you talk. Avoid imitation; write
in your natural style. Write clearly. Avoid gobbledygook and jargon.
Write to be understood, not to impress. Communicate with
understanding. Revise and rewrite. Improvement is always possible.

Just a reminder, though: "Being a writer is a solitary vocation.
Occasionally, letters or phone calls provide evidence that someone out
there is reacting – usually in vehement disagreement. But it is
exceeding difficult for a writer who does not also teach to experience
a continuum of face-to-face challenge and response to his ideas. You
shoot an arrow and most of the time you have no way of knowing what
impact it had, if any."

E. W. Martin adds: "Writing is a lonely profession. It always has
been; it always must be. The author may be a philosopher, poet,
historian, biographer, essayist, or novelist, but his ideas, his
vision, have to be communicated in loneliness. Only by a dredging of
his own consciousness can he get at the kind of power with which to
remake an experience or to reformulate a concept and shed light that
has not been shed before on conditions, ideas, and situations."