Never stop learning, never stop reaching forward for new creative skills. This world is full of media, so don’t rest on your laurels. Both because you can get bored, and because your audience can get bored. And boredom is the biggest sin of creating entertainment.
Got it? Good.
Now, with that disclaimer out of the way: I have a relatively different bit of advice to offer regarding how one can keep learning creative skills. Most go for reading more fiction, reading craft books, attending seminars, or workshops, or classes, or (my favorite) just writing a ton. And yeah: do that.
Do that now. Do that sort of thing routinely.
But, as another way to increase skill: may I suggest writing outside your genre and/or medium?
Because both can teach you a lot of things. Writing in a different genre shows you how to focus on different priorities in storytelling. Writing romance is not usually like writing horror, for instance. In those, there are wholly different emotions and expectations the reader comes for and expects to experience.
Not that blending genres isn’t a cool idea as well, but fully going outside of your comfort zone is good for growth. Going somewhere new with your writing is an exercise for the brain.
But, if you wish to go one hurdle further, you can write in a different medium.
I mostly, here on this site, talk about writing for books and short stories. And that’s because that’s the type of writing I understand best—but branching out bears fruit if you’ll forgive my herbology metaphor.
Writing a screenplay or stage play, even if only a short one, teaches you the economy of language—of letting go of the finer details of control. Of communicating a ton through only how you phrase a sentence.
Creating poetry teaches you to look past the flesh of what you are writing, and focus on metaphors and implications. How to focus on how words clash and echo and mesh as much as what they mean in a dictionary.
Composing songs goes even further than poetry in this regard. As now you must make words that can flow with outside sound. Most songs follow a rigid structure and conveying meaning through that is another lesson worth learning. As is keeping repetition interesting.
Making short stories or novels is excellent, don’t get me wrong, and some people function poorly with the other mediums, but I recommend at least trying to branch out—if only to dip your toes in new oceans.
Because they are different disciplines, however similar. But not divorced from each other wholly in intent, and the more robust your known skills and options in terms of storytelling are, the more you can accomplish with any singular work of art.
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Coolerbs Writes 