I saw an article by Jian You that writing requires five abilities: first, the ability to dare to write; second, the ability to feel, discover, and observe; third, to have a basic narrative ability; the fourth is to have creative ability; the fifth is to have imagination.
The author of this article is a senior writer with nearly thirty years of writing experience, and has systematically participated in writing training classes. He compared these five items and found many of his own shortcomings.
I like coding. Since I have more time to code, I have written nearly 300,000 words, but this is just an accumulation of words, and my writing level has not improved significantly. You also need to compare these five basic abilities to find your own problems.
First, about the issue of daring to write. That is, mobility. Zou Zuoluo once said that the way to deal with procrastination is to just finish writing. The root cause of procrastination is fear. For example, I am afraid of writing long articles, afraid of using my brain to consider structural issues, and afraid of writing unfamiliar content and topics.
When writing, it is often said that you should finish it first and then make it perfect. As you write, you will have new ideas and ideas. The key is to sit down and start writing.
Zhang Meng, a highly effective person, has a famous saying: Daring to compete is important. The more things I experience now, the more I understand this sentence personally.
Second, about the ability to feel, discover and observe. A writer must have a pair of eyes that are good at discovery, a delicate and sensitive heart, and the trait of being good at connecting with people. Li Xiaolai once said that the forms of our input are: practice, observation and reading. These forms of input also refer to these abilities.
Without these abilities, writing will fall into water without a source, a tree without roots, the source of creation will dry up, and you will find that you don’t know what to write. In particular, we need to make daily updates on the Internet, high-quality daily updates, and the collection of materials is very important. To have rich writing topics, you cannot do without these three abilities. I feel that my abilities in these categories are acceptable, I have many feelings, and I am prone to emotions. My shortcoming is that I am not good at recording and organizing things in a timely manner, and some of them briefly flash in my mind and are fleeting.
Third, regarding the ability of narrative. That is the organizational ability of language. This also requires writers to accumulate over a long period of time, form their own language style, and express accurately and concisely. The Little Red Book tells us to use more short sentences and less long sentences, more verbs and less adjectives. The article is not about gorgeous words, but it should be comfortable to read and catchy.
In terms of language training, there is a lot of room for personal improvement. I don’t like revising manuscripts the most. I often feel that I have exhausted all my efforts in the process of writing. The best way to detect it is to read it out loud. If it sounds awkward, you can detect it. You can also put it away for two or three days, pick it up again, and you will have a different feeling when you read it.
Fourth, regarding creative ability. Equivalent to the ability to think, this may be the key to the difference between a writer and a writer. Including whether the topic selection is a pain point issue, whether the writing angle is novel, whether the structure is ingenious, and whether the excavation is in-depth. I saw a big shot in the headlines two days ago. His pictures and articles were almost a hit. I read a few of them and couldn't stop as soon as I started. He deserves to make money. He plans to make money for his daughter on the self-media platform. House dowry. This is the difference in people's thinking ability. Many platforms now advocate writing opinion articles. The opinions should be novel, unique, in-depth, and supported by theory. The great master said that there is no other way but to read books and learn more.
Fifth, about imagination. In Central Park, New York, USA, there is a place where "Internet celebrities" take photos, called "Image". People take pictures here in various poses, hoping that they will have imagination, spread the wings of imagination, and have a better life. When writing fictional articles such as poems and novels, you especially need to have imagination. I was once asked to complete a fictional short novel, but I found it very difficult. I usually tend to be more realistic and basically describe what really happened, without requiring much imagination. If you write a fictional novel like this, you will find that your imagination is not enough.
This is my sketch of myself comparing the five abilities.
As a person who loves to write words, how can you score based on this?