The Things You Learned in School Don't Teach You To Write A Novel

We all learned the basics in school, how to count, spell, and read. We even had classes that taught us what adverbs, adjectives, and verbs are and roughly how to use them. 

However, what they didn't teach was how to write creatively.

If your school was anything like mine there was one way and one way only to write and that was the hamburger model.

The introduction is the top bun followed by the lettuce, ketchup, and burger patty argument points with the bottom bun as your conclusion. These other points were also further structured down, but I'd rather not relive the memories by finding my old notebook.

No other form of the essay was allowed even if the paper was five pages long, you simply added mustard and onions to your essay. Most teachers required us to staple our drawn-out burgers after our works cited page.

When I got to college things were really no different, but they didn't require us to draw out the hamburger. 

Although high school and college English give you a basic understanding of how to write, they truly don't teach you how to write creatively. 

Here are a few things they left out.

How to Find Your Writer Voice

An author's writing voice or the way they come across on the page is your most effective tool when it comes to crafting your novel.

When it comes to novels about vampires there are hundreds if not thousands of stories and the plots sometimes are all the same. the only difference is you. Your voice will be what brings readers into your story.

Basically, take everything you ever learned about writing a formal essay and throw it out of your head. As a writer you want your voice to come through the page, you're not holding your reader at arm's length, you're bringing them into your world and into your mind. They are there to get to know you so make sure you're being absolutely and unapologetically you when you're writing. 

How to Love Books

Thanks to my high school English class there are a few books that I will never pick up and read again. (Sorry Hunger Games! Blame Mrs. White)

I also know too many people that when I ask them what the last book they read was they then tell me that they haven't read a book since they were in high school. For example, my brother graduated high school in 2014… eight years ago. He hasn't read a single book since.

The way some teachers force books and assignments on students sometimes completely throws them off reading for the rest of their lives and I've never known anything sadder. Some of us are able to maintain our love for books and some of us expand on it and decide to become English majors where you'll learn there are even worse ways for Professors to try and ruin reading for you. 

Teachers should take a step back to the analytical side of thinking and allow students to read their assigned books without overanalyzing every single word. 

Macbeth by William Shakespeare is only 102 pages and somehow Mrs. White managed to have us spend an entire ten weeks examining it. Two weeks for each act. I never even wanted to look at another Shakespeare play and was horrified when it was a degree requirement for college.

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If I hadn't been a child obsessed with books and trips to the library then my writing spirit would have been thoroughly crushed by the time I had walked out of my high school in my cap and gown.

Well to be honest it still kind of was. 

When I went to college I was a Biology major since my love for animals was the only thing that outweighed my love of books. It wasn't until my second semester when I took a creative writing class as an elective that I fell head first back in love with writing. It became my favorite class and I had my major switched before the ink had dried on my final exam.

I haven't stopped writing since.

I hope that if you have the love of writing and the drive that once you start you never stop. The only thing from your old English class that you need to keep in your head are some of the grammar rules and even then some rules were meant to be broken.

Best of luck.

With love, 

B.K. xo

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