Writing Forum

I go with both Matt's sponge thing and Eliot's read-like-a-writer approach.

I too have sat through Brandon Sanderson's lectures, John Green's Crash Courses (I've also watched his brother Hank's Crash Course videos too). I've read books and on-line articles on writing (I've even written one or two of my own for newsletters for the CSFS, which was this group's previous incarnation).

Continuing with the sponge theme, to understand human-nature and with the notion of building effective characters, I've watched on-line lectures on psychology. For world-building, I've watch lectures on political and moral philosophy, and because I have an interest in history, I read history books and watch documentaries about historical events, with the eye and ear of a writer looking to take things away from them to use in stories.

I read stories and not just fantasy and science fiction. I try to read as widely as I can. Speculative fiction is a wonderfully flexible genre in so far as you can incorporate elements from any, or all the other genres. As long as your fantasy or science fiction story has a strong element of either (or maybe even both) of those essential categories (fantasy or scifi), then you can write any type of story you please.

Intelligent, well argued debates or in-depth discussions (like this one) are another good resource and I hope that we can get a few more of those going on here.

And last, but perhaps most importantly, I think the best way to improve writing skills is by actually writing. Everyday. Writing good analytical reviews can help you to think about your own writing and I cannot recommend too highly the benefits of doing some sort of creative writing everyday.