When I first started writing fiction, I took an online course through Writers Digest in which the instructor said, “You have the goods,” as a writer. This has always stayed with me because it said I had what it took to write a story. Of course, I had a long way to go and a lot to learn, but she saw that I had an understanding of what needed to occur to write a story.

As I read submissions for Tender & Tempting Tales, I often see this in emerging writers. The writing is still in need of work, but the “goods” are there.

But how do you build on the “goods”? What does improving your writing craft involve or look like?

Writing improvement is often talked about in vague terms. “Read more.” “Practice.” “Find your voice.” All of that is true, but it doesn’t answer the question most writers are actually asking:

What does better writing look like on the page?

In this article, I hope to illustrate how writing skills progress with tangible tips on how you can improve your writing craft.

Talent vs. Learning to Write

One of the most persistent myths about writing is that it’s something you either “have” or you don’t. We talk about natural talent as though strong writers were simply born knowing how to put emotion, pacing, and voice on the page.

It’s true that some writers start with a stronger instinct for language or storytelling, just as some actors have natural charisma, but instinct alone doesn’t produce publishable work. Writing is a learned skill, built through repetition, feedback, and revision. Every level of growth described in this article can be taught, practiced, and improved.

Writing Has Levels

Writing isn’t a single skill. It’s a collection of skills layered over time:

• clarity
• control
• emotional depth
• voice
• restraint

You don’t wake up one morning with all of them fully formed. You build them piece by piece, sometimes without realizing it.

Most writers move through these stages repeatedly. A new genre, a new point of view, or a more ambitious story can temporarily knock you back to an earlier level. I’ve been experiencing this lately as I work to build a new pen name in a different category, and that has a darker tone than what I normally write. It can be difficult to experience. But by pushing through it, you grow.

Level 1: The Beginner Draft

Every writer starts here. Every single one.

Beginner writing is focused on telling the reader what is happening and how the characters feel. Emotions are named directly. Actions are straightforward. It tells over shows, and often is a play-by-play of action. Writing at this stage often looks like this:

She was nervous. She walked into the room and saw him standing there. He looked angry, and she didn’t know what to say.

This kind of writing isn’t wrong. It’s doing its job. The scene is understandable. We know who is present, what the emotional tone is, and why the moment matters. What’s missing is emotional depth and life.

While this level isn’t ready for publishing, there is a foundation for learning. For one thing, writers get the experience of putting what’s in their head onto the page. Second, they learn to finish a story.

The challenge at this level is to understand that once The End is written, the story isn’t finished, unless of course, the story is just for you.

Level 2: The Developing Writer

This is where many writers live for a long time, and often where frustration grows.

At this stage, you understand the basics. You know scenes should have purpose. You recognize info dumps when you write them. You can feel when dialogue is stiff or when a paragraph drags. You may not know how to fix it yet, but you know something isn’t working.

That awareness is progress.

A developing writer might revise the earlier example into something like this:

She hesitated in the doorway, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag. He stood by the window, arms crossed, his dark gaze fixed on her. Whatever she’d planned to say dissolved the moment she saw his face.

At this stage, writers are beginning to understand the rule of showing versus telling by writing physical reactions or sensations. The reader isn’t told that the character is nervous. They experience hesitation. The anger isn’t named. It’s implied through posture and a glare.

At this level, writing can feel inconsistent. One scene shines, the next falls flat. Voice may shift as the writer experiments. That’s normal. This stage is about learning how to guide the reader’s attention, how to manage point of view, and how to show versus tell.

The challenge is getting caught up in trying to write pretty or flowy when the goal is to evoke imagery and emotion.

Level 3: The Competent Writer

At this stage, writing becomes reliable and consistent. Scenes have clear emotional arcs. Dialogue serves multiple purposes. Description supports the emotion of the scene or character. The writer is gaining skills in writing in deep POV, giving the reader an emotional experience.

The same moment might now read like this:

She stopped just inside the room, blowing out a shuddering breath. He stood by the window, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, waiting.

Seconds passed. Maybe more.

She opened her mouth, then shut it again.

Here, silence becomes a tool in creating tension. The writing trusts the reader to connect the dots. The shuddering breath equals nervousness. The crossed arms, narrowed eyes, and the waiting suggest hostility. She opens her mouth but doesn’t speak; her words lost or, as in the earlier rendition, dissolved.

Competent writing keeps readers engaged and experiencing emotions alongside the characters. They may not stop to admire the prose, but they appreciate how it makes them feel. This is the level where many authors publish successfully, especially in romance.

Growth at this stage comes from refinement rather than revision. Writers begin sharpening their voice, tightening pacing, and experimenting with subtext.

Level 4: The Advanced Writer

Advanced writing feels beautiful without being showy.

Voice becomes consistent and recognizable. Sentence rhythm varies intentionally (sometimes less is more). The writer knows when to linger and when to cut away.

The scene might now look like this:

She stopped just inside the room, exhaling slowly. He stood by the window, arms crossed, watching her with heated intensity.

The silence filled the room, growing heavy.

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. There were no words to fix what she destroyed.

The difference between this and level 3 is small, and yet it has more weight. It draws out the tension. Readers hold their breath, wondering what will happen.

At this level, the reader’s experience is vicarious. They feel what the character feels rather than being told what the character feels.

Writers reach this stage through revision, not first drafts. Early drafts are often level 2 and 3, and through revision, they add depth, texture, color, and emotion.

Level 5: Mastery

Not every writer needs to reach this level, and not every story demands it. I don’t imagine I’ll ever reach this level.

Mastery shows up as a distinct, recognizable voice. The prose may be spare or lush, but it’s always with intention. Emotion is precise. This level often takes years to develop.

It’s important to say this clearly: mastery is not a prerequisite for success. Many beloved, bestselling books live comfortably at the competent or advanced levels. Readers care about story and emotion far more than literary perfection.

How to Develop Your Writing

1. Read

Stephan King says that writers are readers. It’s partly how we learn to write. I’ve gone so far as to annotate books I read with a writer’s eye. For example, in the book The Wicked by Rebecca Johnpee, I highlighted a section on page 2 (Elio and The Wicked are the same person. He’s a mafia don).

The Wicked never smiled. He saw no use for it.

He could still remember it as clear as day, dragged to one of his father’s many business meetings. He had dared to laugh when one of their associates made a joke. Nine-year-old Elio received the beating of his life when they returned home. He still had scars to show for it. They stung mentally each time he saw something potentially funny to smile at.

I loved how well she revealed Elio/The Wicked as he is today (…never smiled), wove in the backstory of an abused childhood, and then viscerally tied it into how that past continues to impact him today (They stung mentally each time he saw something potentially funny to smile at).

When reading, study what works and even what doesn’t.

• What information is being withheld?
• How does the writer control pacing?
• Where does the emotion turn?

Warning… Reading is important, and yet one of the fastest ways to lose confidence is to compare your early draft to someone else’s finished novel. Published books are the result of multiple drafts, editorial feedback, and time. You’re comparing your raw footage to the final cut. So don’t read to compare, but to study and learn your craft.

Another word of caution here: As you read to study writing, you may discover it changes how you pleasure-read. For example, I get annoyed at best-selling authors using dialogue tags when they don’t need to.

2. Separate Drafting Skills from Revision Skills

Most writers try to learn everything at once, which is overwhelming and exhausting.

Drafting is about momentum and decision-making. It’s about getting what’s in your head onto the page. Like sketching a picture. Or molding a hunk of clay into a cylinder with a hole in the top.

Revision is about clarity, control, and impact. Filling in your sketch with color and texture. Fleshing out the clay into a vase and adding designs.

If you expect your first draft to be an advanced level, you’ll stall. Give yourself permission to draft messily, then develop skill during revision.

The more you write and develop your skills, the better your initial drafts will be, although you’ll always need to revise.

3. Revise One Skill at a Time

Trying to “make it better” is too vague a goal. Instead, pick a single focus for each revision pass:
• Dialogue that sounds natural
• Emotional cause and effect
• Stronger openings to scenes
• Making sure each scene serves a purpose
• Cutting filler beats

A trick I use to help me write tighter in revision is to:

1. Search for -ly adverbs and change to a stronger verb. When I draft, I use adverbs because they’re fast and easy. But in revision, I seek out stronger verbs. For example, “she walked quietly” might become “she tiptoed.”
2. Look for present continuous (or present progressive) (to-be verb with -ing verb) and switch to the verb. For example, “she was walking” would become “she walked.”
3. Search for feel/felt, see/saw, heard, noticed, realized, etc., and revise to deepen POV. For example, “she realized she was staring at him.” If I’m in her POV, we know who is realizing. “She stared at him.”
4. Find telling situations that would be better as showing. While telling some times is okay, if I want readers to have the emotional ride of a romance, I want to show. For example, “She stared at him in anger.” What does that look or feel like? “Her eyes narrowed to slits as her gaze bore down on him.” Or “Her fingers curled into a fist as she glared at him.”
5. Search for and remove filler words. These are words we use when speaking to accentuate or emphasize our point, but in writing often take the oomph out of what you’re trying to say. “I just really wanted to punch him,” versus “I wanted to punch him.” Filler words include:
   • Just
   • Really
   • Pretty
   • Often
   • So
   • Very
   • That
   • Well
6. Search for dialogue tags (said, asked, etc) to reduce the number of them. The reality is you’ll have them, especially in scenes with more than one person. But you can beef up your writing by eliminating them where possible and instead using an action, emotion, or thought to indicate who is talking. “I hate you,” she said, throwing the vase at him, versus, “I hate you!” She threw the vase at him. 

One focused pass teaches you more than ten unfocused ones.

I used to use the search feature in Word for each of these passes (including search for each filler word), but now I use Autocrit, which has tools to find filler words, passive sentences, dialogue tags, and more. It also has a really cool alpha read feature to help with developmental revisions.

4. Learn to Recognize When Less Is More

One of the biggest leaps in writing skill comes from subtraction. I’m not just talking about killing your darlings. I’m talking about cutting extra words in a sentence or lines of dialogue. In the same way filler words can take the oomph out of your writing, so too can too much writing. When it comes to packing an emotional punch, less is often more.

Cut:

• Explaining emotions the reader already understands
• Repeating the same beat in different words
• Over-describing what isn’t emotionally important
• Monologue dialogue
• Extra words/phrases in sentences that slow down the story (e.g. She walked outside, the sun’s rays wrapping around her like a warm blanket, filling her with hope for the day. >> She walked outside, the sun’s warm rays wrapping around her. Or She walked outside, the sun’s warm rays filling her with hope for the day.

5. Get an Editor or Critique Partner

The challenge of writing is learning what you’re supposed to do and thinking you’re doing it, when you’re not. You know what you wanted to say and how you want readers to understand it, but because you layer your intention over what you read of your writing, you may not have actually succeeded. Other readers can let you know if your words did the job.

Edits from others who understand writing can help you see, understand, and internalize writing craft.

6. Keep Writing

My writing now is infinitely better than my writing fifteen years ago. Part of that is practice, along with applying the skills and lessons I’ve learned from editors and other writers. My first several books (before I had an agent who helped me improve immensely), are loaded with filler words and dialogue tags. I desperately want to rewrite them…lol.

The point is, writing is like any other skill. You get better with practice and feedback.

7. Trust the Process

Writing improvement is rarely dramatic. It comes with practice and internalizing what you learn. Because it can be slow and requires several passes through a single story, it can feel frustrating.

But if you keep showing up and practicing, the skills will develop.