Choose your style—If you want to write in short sentences that are easily understood by most readers, go for it. If you want to write at a college level, go for it. Just remember that there are consequences associated with whatever choice you make in this regard.  Not everyone wants to read at the college level, so if you’re too difficult to read you’ll limit your market of potential readers.  If you’re writing at a fifth grade level, you may lose some readers as well who find your prose too simple.

I wrote Murder at the Ocean Forest to be deliberately difficult to read with long flowing sentences and extensive descriptions.  I wanted to paint the scenes for the readers.  Some people haven’t been able to finish the book because it’s too difficult for them to read; they say they have to concentrate too hard.  Other say they love the descriptions of the Ocean Forest Hotel since it makes them feel like they are there.

Another aspect to consider is character development and how you paint the picture for the readers.  Do you want to describe the characters and settings in great detail so that the readers can visual them?  Do you want to be more generic by providing the readers a basic outline of the characters and setting and let the readers fill in between the lines in their own minds?  The answer to this may be a function of the type of novel that you’re writing.  If the book is character driven where there’s only a few characters, you may want to be very descriptive.  Same goes if the setting is the driving factor.  In The Maynwarings, there are a lot of characters, some of which are more developed than others, but the setting at the Greenbrier Ranch is also important.  The House of Dark Shadows is more of a character driven novel, since there are really only four main characters in the book…or are there?

There’s no right answer when it comes to your own style.  You need to consider who your general audience is going to be and to whom you want to cater.  Of course, you can’t please everyone, so go with what you’re most comfortable with writing.

Read a lot and learn from it—One of the best ways to become a good writer is to read a lot of books, particularly those published by known authors. You’ll pick up ideas for style and how to build characters or plot or setting from authors who have been there and done that. If you write westerns, you should read Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour to get a feel for how they wrote about the Old West.  If you write detective/police novels, you could read Mickey Spillane or Ed McBain.  Michael Crichton’s books might give you insight into science fiction or medical thrillers.  That’s not to say you should take their ideas or try to recreate their work.  Far from it.  You should read their books with an eye towards learning how they develop characters or present the theme of the book.  You probably don’t want to write a science fiction book that has plot development elements of a western.  You may develop characters differently in a legal thriller than in a romance book.  You may learn how other authors build scenes and theme for your chosen genre.

Reading other authors in your genre isn’t the only reading an indie author should be doing.  Read other books and newspapers and articles about writing and authors.  Reading helps improve your grammatical skills and generally expands your vocabulary, both of which help improve your work.  If you’re writing medical thrillers, keep up with what’s going on in the field.  I’m not saying you should study to be a doctor, but you should keep up with developments in the medical fields if you’re writing about an epidemic or biological warfare.  One of my favorite weekly publications is The Economist.  It has everything from world affairs to economics to new books to science and technology and so on.  From there I might find something that I want to explore more and learn more about.  I’ve even come up with some pretty good ideas for storylines based on topics I first read about in The Economist.  Reading expands your horizons and helps you further strengthen your writing skills.