How do you become a better writer?

EGarrett said:
Shame that we force our young people to sit around identifying the shallow structural aspects of grammar instead of the substance of it.
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your sig, newbs, not n00bs.
 
Read whatever it is that you like to read, and do it often. Take time away from other things and dedicate them to writing and reading. Set a writing goal, no matter how high or low it is, and achieve it every day. Every time the goal is not accomplished, you wasted a day of your life.

Enjoy it!
 
if you are just looking to improve technical skills, such as grammar and sentence structure, read up on a standardized tests. I thought I was a pretty good writer until I started studying for the GMAT and realized how many common grammar errors the average person makes without ever realizing it. Since you are in high school, maybe read up on SAT/ACT prep books.
 
I searched around a bit and did not find anything like that, so yeah, reading and writing daily is the only thing you can really do at this point. Sign up for some college classes maybe, non-transferable that focuses on this particular area (I would not normally advise such a thing, but in this case that may be what you are looking for). Or English 1A and 1C at community colleges.
 
JuliaB4GSP said:
In the short term you can get a tutor and just have them beat the rules into you. Should be able to find help for free if you're a student.

Long term, try and read the western canon. Literally try and read every book that people talk about being great, especially if you want to be some form of writer. My grammar is still atrocious, but the only way I got better was just reading the big books; Proust, James Joyce, Flaubert, Nabokov etc.
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Or you could read fun books. Making a child read Joyce should be punished the same way as other child abuse.
 
Of course reading and writing, but make sure to read the works of some great writers, the most influential to me has been Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
 
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