Does practice help your writing skill?

Yes, writing practice improves writing.

I'm not sure anyone can answer the question whether everyone has the capacity to be a great writer.

There are many styles of writing--many ways for writing to be great. Even Martin and Tolkien don't appeal to every reader.

Writing can be painful when your taste, as a reader, exceeds your ability, as a writer. I'm still in that position. Keep writing if, despite that agony, you need to write.

Wish I had a more definitive answer for you.

Nox VII said:

Can you reach the level of writers like George R. R. Martin or J. R. R. Tolkien by practicing? Or you're either good or bad, and no amount of work can change that?

Click to expand...

You can't become Martin or Tolkein. You can only become you. Whether you'll be better or worse than they are is anybody's guess (and, as Anna points out, is subjective).

And yes, practice is how it's done. Reading can help too, because it exposes you to different uses of the language.

Skill with language is one of those things that often improves as we age, because we use it daily (unlike math, which I still love, but damned if I can remember how to do an integral these days). What you're experiencing is an absolutely normal part of being a writer. In a way, when you're a writer, you're always going to be in training.

Sometimes it's useful to compare yourself to others...but not always. Your style is yours, and practicing is exactly what you need to do to develop it. If you're not feeling compelled to finish this story, write a different one. And be proud of yourself - as long as you're writing, you're headed in the right direction.

Any skill, whether it's writing or something else, is something you get good at with practice.

So yes, practice will absolutely help. I can pretty much guarantee Tolkien and Martin didn't just pick up a pencil one day and start writing like literary gods. Rather, they practiced. Perhaps they started very young and thus had years of experience long before reaching adulthood, but they did have to practice.

With that said, I'd say there are smart ways to practice. Read Tolkien and Martin and ask why their paragraphs look so much better than yours. Learn from those that are better than you and use every resource available to you.

Nox VII said:

Or you're either good or bad, and no amount of work can change that?

Click to expand...

If that were true, it would mean every writer who ever lived started writing at their best from day one. Do you think Shakespeare just sat down one day and started writing sonnets without even trying?

Writing definitely improves with practice. However, I wouldn't do it if I didn't love doing it, because then you already win. Chances of making it big or even being able to ever make a living with fiction writing are slim. I would not want to spend so much of my life on it if I felt like anything less than big time commercial success meant I had failed.

Writing is like any discipline. If you put enough time into running, exercise, welding, programming or drawing, you'll get down the fundamentals. If you put in more time, you may even become competent, or good at it. If you're talking that greatness or genius that catapults a few select individuals ahead of everyone else, okay, THAT requires the mysterious "X" or "It" factor is about genius/destiny/talent. But even then, that still often requires the gumption to stick with it and improve the craft. I've met writers before with a natural flair for the language, who I know are better writers than I am, but they lost patience with writing, or how long the results take to show themselves, and they don't stick with it. So their natural talent is negated by impulses to quit or drop it. A successful writer is, among other things, a writer that didn't quit.

Practice improves everything. My fiction was unreadable a year ago.

Does practice help your cello playing? Can you reach the level of Yo Yo Ma by practicing, or you're either good or bad and no amount of work can change that?

This quote from Ira Glass helps me out when I am, feeling down on my work. Maybe it can help you?

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Mastery requires practice. If you want to write well, work at it. Read a lot, and widely. Write a lot, and wildly (yes, I meant wildly). Rewrite, revise and edit your work relentlessly so you learn your own weaknesses and stamp them out. Critique other writers so you learn how to articulate what works and what doesn't. Read great books and terrible books. Take them apart until you understand what makes them good or bad.

If you don't revise and improve your own works, you won't improve as a writer.

Yes. Write everyday. Do writing prompts. Free write. Write like nobody's reading. Try different genres, characters, settings, time zones. It doesn't have to be attached to another project, just write. Have fun and enjoy the trip.

Seriously, I studied art and earned my degree. I drew everyday. Some turned into pieces worth finishing or pursueing others....well, I have a special box in the basement for those. The same is true with my stories.

Writing is like any other craft. It takes diligence, patience, and lots and lots of practice.

It's not a coincidence that Stephen King said the first million words are just practice.

Yes, you will get better with practice. And part of that practice is finishing what you start. Writing is not just putting words on the page in a pleasing manner. It's storytelling, and to learn that, you have to actually tell complete stories.

Yes, as all the others have said. Writing does improve with practice and practice is absolutely necessary to bring out your own particular style and voice. That said, practicing in a vacuum can leave you writing the same way over and over. To improve at any art, an artist will come to a place where they need some critique to find what areas need improvement. Keep writing, and when you are ready, find a way to share your work and get some other people's eyes on it. It can be tough, but it truly helps.

When I go back and read the first story I ever wrote, it is amazing how far I've come. Am I a Stephen King yet? No way, but I'm still improving with every book I write!

The work only improves by doing it. Also by reading as much as you can, digesting great writing and perspectives. Most days I feel like a failure. I still write every day, and I know objectively I've made great progress. But I also know in some places I'm still not there. Knowing this is what drives you and sustains you, and keeps you moving towards discovering the possibility in your work. I have a short story right now that I have real hopes for, but I know it isn't there. I don't know what the problem is exactly. I just have to keep at it, and find what the solution is to making it work.

Natalie Portman (if memory serves) said in an interview that even in her worst jobs she learned something.

I think practice is worthy, but there is no point in writing the same mistakes over and over again. Show your work to people you trust, and pay attention to what they tell you about it. Read how-to articles and books by writers you trust, and see what, if anything, they say that can help you.

Study the art of storytelling as well as the art of writing. You can turn out beautiful, haunting prose, but if the story elements don't hang together, the story won't work. (Events that don't make sense, characters who don't ring true, plot holes that need filling, etc.)

At the same time, rattling off a story in a this-happened-that-happened-The End fashion with nothing to emotionally connect the reader to the story doesn't work either, even if the plot is water-tight.

So practice by all means—but do it meaningfully. Learn to recognise the areas where you need to improve and learn how to improve them.

And enjoy the process!

Just gleaning from your posts, so take this as you will: Are short stories what you want to write? While all writing is practice and is beneficial, if you're using all your practice energy on short stories when you really want to write epic fantasy, your time could be better spent... writing an epic fantasy. Even if it's for practice. I love writing short stories, but they have a very different cadence and flow than novels, and use different mental resources. So yes practice, practice a variety of forms, but practice frequently in the area you want to master.

Learning is a result of practice and feedback. if you have no way to know if you are getting better, practice does not have a function.

Practice, feedback and an effort to learn from the feedback and from other writing-skills sources.

My goal is to be a better writer than I was yesterday.

I'm going to say ditto to what else has been said, but also include a link to a blog post I recently wrote, that touches on this very subject. Maybe it will help make some of the points made by others here, more clear to you:

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/15434998-finding-your-writing-niche

Devil Ledbetter, Maeze, and veinglory already touched on this, but I wanted to make it more explicit. Depending on who you are, simply writing often should improve the quality of your work. But will this improve it enough that others take pleasure in reading it? This is the expensive question, and I believe that for most of us, the answer is no.

Most of us have blind spots. I need critique to improve. Even established writers who have "arrived," like Brandon Sanderson, need critique. Tolkien needed critique. Feedback is essential (usually) for artistic endeavors. Looking at your work through someone else's eyes is the fastest, easiest way I know to get better. And in my case, I don't think I'd have sold a single story if I hadn't become a denizen of the Share Your Work forums. (Thanks again, everyone who's ever critted me. )