Improve Fiction with Other Writing

Posted by Jennifer Jensen Aug 1, 2008

I recently moved from the United States to Ireland for a few years, and with an eye towards publishing some travel articles, I enrolled in a two-day travel writing course close to my new home.

In one sense, it wasn’t what I had hoped for. It focused more on book length travel writing than newspaper articles. But within that scope, the class delved into dialogue, humor, setting a scene, and creating a sense of place. And what more could a fiction writer want?

I came away from the writing class with a better sense of how to truly observe what’s around me, and with a long list of future reading materials to show me how some of the best authors have done it. While it will be of some help with newspaper articles, my fiction projects can’t help but benefit.

Get out of your writing rut and try it yourself. Write some articles as a newspaper correspondent. Attend a seminar on travel writing. Try some essay writing. Take a college poetry writing class. You’ll find some things that cross genres perfectly, and others that have you practicing from a different perspective.

If you keep an open mind, you’ll learn a lot: how to write tight, focus on one point, or develop keen observation skills, for starters. And then take what you’ve learned and apply it to your fiction.