These three things to being a good writer are three basic things I believe that are needed to create stories. I am not going into editing and persistence et cetera but all those things are also essential. These three things are more to the spirit of creative writing.

They are:

1: Observation.

In every day situations, on the train to work, at work, walking home along the street. You have to keep an eye out on what is happening. There is always something happening when people are around. I do not mean stare at people and create bad feeling, I mean look at the way someone carries a box, look at how the two women are talking to each other, listen to what people say as they pass you. All these things, little things will help you create a character.

Also just look at the way the sun shines off a window and lights up the bicycles along the front of the post office or the way a chain link fence rattles in the wind, all of this creates a world within your writing.

2. Experience.

Everything that happens to you becomes your property and is essential for your mind to create a story. Think about how it feels when the elevator doors open, think about how it feels when a car drives close to you, thinks about what your friends did last week, think about how you handled the crazy guy on the street who demanded your spare change. Everything is helpful to your writing, nothing is ever useless. I still remember a homeless guy asking me for money on the street when I was at university and had no money of my own. I reached into my pocket and gave him what I had, it was only fifty cents and he abused me for the paltry amount. It was worth every cent to have that memory.

3. Imagination.

Not the most important but another corner on the triangle. You need imagination to create work. It is easy to exercise your imagination. All you need to do is daydream. Also pick up any Charles Dickens novel and read the first two paragraphs. Picture everything he says in your mind. Dickens is a genius at creating pictures with words.

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