How do you improve your writing, and do novelists always get good grades in language class? Not necessarily. Utsudo’s Chinese grades were only slightly above average in school, but her composition scores were always good. She believes popular fiction needs the same logic, structure and fluency as essay writing, and that writing skill grows by writing and reading often: start with plain, readable prose, then gradually add vocabulary and descriptive technique.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

This came up while chatting with viewers during one of my livestreams.

The stereotype of the novelist

Whenever novelists come up, people seem to assume our language skills must be amazing—that we can compose a poem in a few steps, or open a window, watch some sparrows cross a grey sky, and instantly pour out verse.

Uh, we’re certainly great at daydreaming, but we’re not that impressive. Is this the influence of the classical poets? We really don’t marvel at the beauty or decay of the world for no reason. We’re just ordinary people XD

The modern version of the image is probably a writer in a big, elegant house, brewing coffee or herbal tea, then gracefully typing away at a laptop.

Well, those are all stereotypes, but that’s not today’s topic XD

Grades in Chinese class aren’t the same as writing ability

Honestly, my Chinese grades in school were only slightly above average, and I didn’t do well on the university entrance exam either… and yet I still ended up writing a pile of books and becoming a novelist through and through, hahaha.

Language-class grades (exams) aren’t the same as fluency with words or a sense of logic. If anything, I think composition is closer to the skill popular fiction writers need.

Composition is about logic, fluent use of language, overall structure, characterization and so on, combined with basics like grammar and punctuation. My composition scores were always pretty high, but my Chinese grades were meh—classic case of no hard skills but top-tier at making things up (X

To me, even though essays still had to follow a prompt, they gave far more freedom than any other exam. I guess I’m just someone who doesn’t like being boxed in?

School essays were only about 800 characters, yet back then that felt like so much! I’d have to think forever, and when I had no inspiration I could barely squeeze out a line or two. Now I casually type more than that every day. Training really makes a difference.

Maybe because I’d been writing stories since elementary school, essays were never hard for me. Master the four-part structure of opening, development, turn and conclusion, tie the beginning to the end, and you can finish a piece that scores decently.

From an 800-character essay to a 70,000-character novel

But an 800-character essay and a novel of at least 70,000 characters demand completely different levels of skill and patience. That’s why the real challenge only begins when you actually start writing a novel.

For most beginners, forget structure or pacing—just finishing a complete work where the ending answers the beginning and every thread is resolved is hard enough. Once the main plot runs alongside several subplots, plus all the relationships between characters, the tangled threads will tie your brain in knots.

The first thing I ever finished was a short story of about 5,000 characters in junior high. The next thing I finished was 《絕命拍檔》, the manuscript I submitted to a publisher. It was 350,000 characters and took me about two years, since I was figuring things out as I went. Fighting a boss way above your level is exhausting.

And my next work was even crazier: 700,000 characters.

But after writing something that long, I realized I’m not really suited to huge epics. Combined with market limits, I rarely wrote series longer than six volumes after that, and even started writing standalone novels. I used to think I wasn’t good at standalones, but I got the hang of them.

Everyone has lengths they’re more comfortable with, but I think it’s worth practicing all of them. New writers without much experience can start with short stories of a few thousand characters, then go longer once they’re comfortable.

Of course that’s the ideal way to level up. Thinking about it, I never actually followed that method myself. I just picked whatever story I wanted to write, regardless of length. Before I went commercial, I didn’t even care about word count. Just write first and worry later XD

After all, once you have basic precision with words—readers understand you, and you can describe a scene accurately—you can start telling stories.

How to improve your writing: write often, read a lot

Writing style and technique can be trained. Write often and read a lot and you will improve. Mastering language takes practice: spending time polishing these fundamentals is the basic training every novelist needs.

Good writing doesn’t have to be ornate. Compared with flowery prose, I think concise, plain, easy-to-read writing is what truly suits popular fiction. If readers have to reach for a dictionary every few sentences, or puzzle over word choices and hidden meanings, that’s fine now and then—but a whole book like that is exhausting just to imagine. Don’t torture your readers XD

Popular fiction should be something ordinary people can read. Good prose adds to a piece, of course, but overdoing it until it’s hard to read is putting the cart before the horse.

Try starting with a straightforward voice, then gradually add vocabulary, descriptive “camera work” and other techniques, plus a suitable amount of emotion and reflection. Your writing will level up before you know it.

When one day you look back at your old writing and think, “What on earth was I writing?!”, it proves one thing: congratulations, your writing has improved a lot!

FAQ

Further reading

• Previous: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #100: What Chapter Lengths Say About the Times
• Start from the beginning: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #01: Utsudo’s Debut — A Road to the Dream Covered in Frost
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.