Writing as art, craft and magic

Writers: artists dedicated to creatively work with words and make a design from it. That is my definition of a writer. So if someone considers oneself a writer but not an artist that person is not totally aware of his or her capability as a writer. And as every artist does his or her work, like painters start from sketches and dancers start from movements, writers start with the conceptualization of an idea (imagination, dreaming) and the actual process of doing the work (techniques, organization).
Writing is craft, is work, and is a process. According to the book, craft is the technical part in writing. It includes several steps in the construction of a story. First the person starts by launching and thinking of the main idea for the story design. After having a starting point, it is necessary to start doing some research and reporting to get the most accurate and valid information. Once the necessary information is collected, it is time to look for a focus and organize the material. The next step after having an outline prepared is to concentrate for writing. And after writing for the first time, the writer should rewrite, double check, and copyedit the final work.
But none of these is worth if the writer does not manifest magic in its writing process. Writing as magic means all the inspiration and imagination a writer needs to have in order to achieve high quality in its work. Indeed, high quality writing is the perfect combination and effective use of craft and magic. Just as it is mentioned in the book: “The great secret of writing is to bring craft and magic into unison rather than opposition, into creative fusion rather than immobilizing tension.”
Writers know that to achieve magic in their writing they need to get inspiration. And that inspiration can come from talking to other people, walking, thinking, writing down everything on the head, and some might even get ideas from their dreams. At the end of this whole process, writing a story must concentrate on the three s’: storyline, surprise, and stylishness. A good story includes an interesting idea (storyline) that is unconventional and unusual enough for readers (surprise), with quality writing, making it a pleasure for the reader to enjoy (stylishness).
Another point to discuss is the future of written storytelling. Definitely audiences are going more towards online media; they are getting all kinds of information from the Internet like news, events, activities and many more. That said, it is worthless for writers and journalists to stick only to print in one medium. Nowadays, journalists have to position themselves online with blogs, for example.
Media convergence is making journalists broaden their fields of work because print newspaper or TV only is not enough for the demanding audiences. Overall, I don’t think online writing is killing print writing. Instead, I think it is developing and growing into another technological level that presents us news and stories with different and more compelling characteristics, like when using multimedia. I also think that print will still remain but writers and journalists must be aware of this drastic change. At least magazines will stay for a while, because there is always going to be audience demanding print somehow. That is the beauty of having varieties of media.