Reading books on writing is a great and a necessary step for each beginner writer. You should learn a lot about story structure, character building, world building, subtext, conflict, scene building, outlining, and the list goes on.
However, all of that is a waste of time if you aren’t actually writing. Writing is as much important as learning about writing.
Following somebody else’s train of thought while breaking down a scene, or some story elements is one thing but creating all of these from scratch is another.
While being exposed to three-act structure analysis where a person of authority is labeling all crucial plot points you will probably think – That makes sense; that’s self-explanatory, but in reality, it’s not.
It is much more difficult once you try creating it by yourself.
You should understand that a person who is explaining something to you speaks from the expert point of view and you are probably just a beginner with little or none knowledge about storytelling.
It doesn’t matter how many great stories you have consumed. Being exposed to greatness doesn’t automatically make you an expert. Yes, it can help you to grasp an understanding of how it should look and feel like, but there is a lot of hard work in front of you before you can achieve something like that.
Therefore, if you’re looking for a shortcut, a step by step guide, boxes which you need to check in order to become a great writer, I must tell you that there aren’t any.
I’m not telling you this because I think I’m an expert, quite the opposite, I realized how much I have to learn and I would just like to warn you that you might want to do the same.
Still, from my point of view, the best way to apply and comprehend the knowledge which you gain from reading books on writing is through writing.
Write, write, write.
Write unconsciously, write consciously and build all the story elements. Try, fail and get up again.