The Pros and Cons of Studying the Writing Craft

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Studying the craft of writing is useful to improve your skill, but at what point does it become a hindrance?

I received an interesting email last week from a woman who’s taking advantage of her quarantine to study up and improve her writing. She’s been reading a lot of craft books, and was wondering if a writer could read too much—could their education outweigh their skill?

Short answer: Yes, absolutely.

Long answer: Still yes, but with more detail (grin).

When I was starting out, books and school were pretty much the only ways to get a writing education. There were writing conferences out there, but they were harder to find since the Internet was still new and just becoming the behemoth it is today (and for the record, this was early ’90s. I’m not a dinosaur yet).

I’m sure there were online resources, but I was clueless on how to find or use them. Everyone was still using the printed and enormous Writers’ Market books and sending paper snail mail queries. It’s hard to imagine that now with everything at our fingertips, but this was pre-Google. It was pre-most-things-Internet.

I bought a ton of books, read them, highlighted passages, took notes, and absorbed as much as I could.

On one hand, this was good as it gave me knowledge and understanding of the process. But on the other, there’s only so much a writer get from reading about craft. You have to write to really understand how to write.

Here are some pros and cons about studying the craft of writing:

Pro: You Build a Foundation of Understanding About Writing

Writing has a language all its own, and it’s useful to understand that language. You’ll be better prepared to benefit from what you’re reading when you know what the terms mean and what the techniques are. It’s hard to craft a scene using a protagonist with agency and a strong narrative drive if you don’t understand what those four things are.

You also learn the basics of writing and storytelling, so when you start writing, you have some guidelines and structure to guide you. You’ll think about things such as your inciting event, and what your point of view is, and if you’re showing or telling.

(Here’s more on Write Happy! The 4 Little Letters That Will Transform Your Writing Process)

Con: You Know So Much That You Worry if You’re Doing it Right vs. Writing

The flip side here is knowing all the things you ought to be doing can paralyze you from actually writing at all. I’ve spoken to plenty of writers who keep outlining or planning, or writing and revising their first few chapters over and over because they aren’t doing something every craft book says they need to do.

It’s easy to get so caught up in making it perfect that nothing gets done. The “perfect first draft” is a myth, but the quest for that seems to go up significantly for new writers thinking they need to write pro-quality work their first time out. They don’t. They just need to finish a draft.

(Here’s more on Do Writers Practice Their Art?)

Pro: You’re Exposed to a Variety of Process and Technique

Every writer is different, and when you’re starting out, you’re not sure what will work for you. There are techniques and processes you likely haven’t heard before. Reading about the various ways to write helps you identify what appeals to you and helps you find your own process.

Are you a pantser or a planner or somewhere in between? Do you like to fast draft and revise, or write slowly and revise as you go? Do you write chronologically or out of order? Pencil and paper or computer? Mind map or wing it? There are so many options to try and experiment with.

(Here’s more on What's the Best Way to Tell (and Write) a Story?)

Con: You Try Everything and Never Figure Out Your Own Process

The problem with having so many options is that you might get sucked down the rabbit hole of trying all of them and never finding your own. It’s also common to hit a wall with your story and think it’s your process that’s the problem, not the story or scene itself. “Oh,” you say, “if I outline/pants/mind map instead, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

While it’s true that the wrong process can make it tough to write, be wary if you’re still having the same problems no matter which process you use. That’s a red flag it’s the scene or the story, not the process.

(Here’s more on What Matters More? Story Execution or the Idea?)

Pro: You Know What You Should Be Doing

It’s a lot easier to write a well-crafted story when you know how a well-crafted story is put together. You have plot points and structure to guide you, you know how to create goals and conflicts, you write to show and not tell. Even in rough-draft form, the story works.

Having a strong writing foundation gives you the necessary tools to write well. Understanding how those tools work allows you to use the best tool for the job at hand.

(Here’s more on Writing Takes Work, Even When You're a Pro)

Con: You Know What You Should Be Doing

It’s a lot harder to write a well-crafted story when you know how a well-crafted story is put together. The flaws are more obvious, you know when you’re not doing something right, and the desire to be better can cause unnecessary or too-early revisions.

It’s that expectation that everything has to work the first time that gets you. There’s no room for letting the story develop organically, or finding your feet as a writer. It’s the urge to “get moving” and not “waste time” on a story that might not sell. But here’s the thing—it’s extremely rare for a first book to sell. Writers need those early novels to hone their skills and develop their craft.

(Here’s more on Can We Know Too Much About the Publishing Industry?)

If your goal is to be a published author one day (indie or traditional), then you will of course need to study and improve your writing skills to a professional level. But writing has steps just like any other skill—for example, in ice skating, you need to learn how to stand on ice skates before you can land a triple axle. If you don’t know what a goal is, you won’t be able to write a strong scene. But once you learn the fundamentals, you can move on to your first “jump.”

Read books, takes classes, do workshops. Learn what you need to be successful, but don’t spend all your time learning and skip the practice of writing. You need to write a novel to fully understand what goes into crafting one. You need to plot and plan and create characters and motivations to sharpen those skills, and reading a book on character development will only get you so far. Just like reading about jumps won’t mean you can land one on the ice.

Knowledge + practice = skill.

Gather your knowledge, then write.

Have you ever faced craft-book overload? How did you deal with it?

Find out more about show, don't tell in my book, Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It).

With in-depth analysis, Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It) teaches you how to spot told prose in your writing, and discover why common advice on how to fix it doesn't always work. It also explores aspects of writing that aren’t technically telling, but are connected to told prose and can make prose feel told, such as infodumps, description, and backstory.

This book will help you:

• Understand when to tell and when to show
• Spot common red flag words often found in told prose
• Learn why one single rule doesn't apply to all books
• Determine how much telling is acceptable in your writing
• Fix stale or flat prose holding your writing back

Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It) is more than just advice on what to do and what not to do—it’s a down and dirty examination and analysis of how show, don’t tell works, so you  can adapt the “rules” to whatever style or genre you’re writing. By the end of this book, you’ll have a solid understanding of show, don’t tell and the ability to use it without fear or frustration.

Available in paperback and ebook formats.

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of "Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read" from the Georgia Center for the Book.

She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.

When she's not writing novels, she's teaching other writers how to improve their craft. She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing.

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