How To Write    by Mark Sanford

Writing, like any other discipline, requires practice and study.  Avid readers tend to have the edge on non-readers when it comes to composing essays or articles.  It only stands to reason that anyone with command of grammar and composition will have an edge on the average person.  This is true, but writing starts with the imagination and everyone has that!

Whether you are a high school or college student, a starving author or just someone that has something to say, all composition begins with thoughts.  These thoughts are mixtures of ideas, memories, feelings and convictions.  Your task is to put these things into legible reading material that has continuity and expression.  One of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, very seldom used words anyone needed to look up in a dictionary, but he was a master at creating characters and scenes.  How do you get these thoughts and points down on paper so that readers don't shriek from illiteracy!

A common mistake in writing is to think you can sit down at your key board and an essay will flow like water.  It doesn't usually work that way unless what you are writing about is ingrained in your mind.  Most grand mental expressions come when we least expect them to appear when our minds are relaxed and creativity is at its highest.  So, how do we capture these times to compose them into essay?

There are tricks to capturing ideas and memories.  We live in an age of unparalleled technology.  That is, if you carry a digital camera and recorder ( the cost is minimal ), when the time is right record your thoughts and pictures.  My best thoughts seem to happen when I am jogging.  I believe this is because I like to jog and the scenery is great.  These two things put my mind at ease and the expression is automatic.  Can you imagine what William Shakespeare would have accomplished using our technology?  It took me awhile to realize that good ideas were slipping away because I never recorded them.  I started by writing them down and progressed to recording them.  Recording your thoughts is fast and unlimited.  For example, you want to be a sports writer.  So, as an exercise, you sit down to watch an NFL season game.  Turn on your recorder and just make the same comments about the players as you would if your buddies were with you.  After the game is over, play back what you recorded and you will find you have material for 3 articles!  Sports writers do the same thing and they get paid for it!

Okay, you have material so how to do compose it?  The key to composition is to link similar thoughts together.  Taking the NFL game you recorded, let's say it is a Dallas Cowboys season game.  You recorded random thoughts and comments about different players throughout the game.  Your article is "Will Dallas Make The Playoffs?"  Collect every comment about each player from your recorder, group them by player and write them down.  Now, you can use a definitive pro and con article to place each comment in either category.  Introduce your article by telling your reader, in so many words, that there are pros and cons to Dallas' chance.  The body will be grouping pros and cons of players that you have written down.  The summary will be your personal projection for Dallas' chance along with restating the conclusion to your introduction.

That is a quick and simple way to compose an article.  Use the editors that every PC offers to correct grammatical errors and sentence construct.  Remember, you must read, read and read other authors works. You will find with time that you are critiquing these other writers.  Maybe your vocabulary, at this point, is limited, don't let that stop you from creating your article.  Who had the better vocabulary - Mark Twain or William Shakespeare?

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