Getting better? How do you know?

I feel that my writing improves eveytime my work is critiqued because I learn from the criticism. I know by just looking back at my old work how much I hav improved and sometimes I actually read something of mine and say hey that's pretty good and believe that is a HUGE deal for me.

i would say if your learning then your improving.

I know because the parts of my WIP I wrote longer ago are crap. I have to rewrite them to achieve consistent quality. And then when I'm done with that, I have to rewrite the other parts, because they've lagged behind.

One way, as others have pointed out, is to start submitting. Every published writer was once unpublished and would have stayed that way if they hadn't braved the market and the possibility of rejection.

Another way is to look for an objective, professional critique, ideally someone from the publishing industry. I do those kind of critiques for a very nominal fee, because it is so hard for as-yet unpublished writers to get that level of feedback. That won't tell you how much you've improved over time, but will indicate whether or not your work is ready for its closeup.

This is a very interesting question. I've always wondered if I'm terrible and people laugh at me or if I actually have potential. Of course my family and friends say it's great and want more. Never heard from someone I don't know I think I know what that means haha

I think it's when you can explain why a paragraph works, why all of the sentences fit.

Do you remember the scene from Amadeus where Salieri is sight-reading Mozart's work? He hears it in his head and then explains it for the audience: "Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall." Writing is similar, I think. You can see the whole and you can see the pieces. You understand how they're pulling in one direction to give the story life. You can move in levels from that too. You can explain how words craft the sentence and how paragraphs move the scene.

It's why you can look at your early writing and find flaws, because now you see the pieces and understand how they fit. (There's a Tool song there . . .)

There's nothing worse than having Mozart crit your work in front of the Emperor: https://youtu.be/NlpxjBgG-7E?t=6m25s
"Better? What do you think?"

Jamills08 said:

Never heard from someone I don't know 樂 I think I know what that means haha

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Have you had any of your work critiqued in a workshop, such as Share Your Work here on site? You'll get all sorts of feedback, and much of it from people you don't know. If you're wanting to test your theory.

Like others have said: your writing gets purposeful. You're not writing willy-nilly, you're thinking about the ramifications the words you're putting on the page have to the story at hand. You see that you've used the same word three times in the same para without someone pointing it out because you're aware you overuse it already. You know that show vs tell is a guideline that should be observed but not mindlessly followed. You learn from your previous work. Stuff like that. IMO, the best way to become an improved writer is sitting down and doing just that: write.

I find that it goes in cycles with me. I write short stories until I can't write any more, and then I post them on Share Your Work and edit them. Then I go back through my novels and find ways to improve them that I couldn't see before. It's a weird system, maybe, but it works for me.

The other way is to reread something of yours that you haven't read for a while and think, "Hey, I wrote that. That's pretty good."

I'm hoping that my writing will be ready just about the time that I figure out how to promote. That would be severely cool.

When I can tell the difference between my old work and my new, and when writing the "right" way comes naturally to me. When looking back, I used to really struggle with tense, and had to think about it a lot more than I do now.