Here are 13 ways to improve your writing skills:
1. Research your audience and their questions before you write. This goes for nonfiction and fiction. Who are you writing for?
2. Start with an outline to organize your ideas and create a clear structure. I usually do this in my head, but some people write it down and have concise, clear outlines.
3. Simplify your topic and avoid over-explaining or using unnecessary details. This may not work if you're writing a fantasy, but it is a must for nonfiction. Aim to write for about the 6th grade level (if you can figure out what that is these days).
4. Expand your vocabulary and use precise words. Avoid jargon and obscure terms. Of course, if you're writing a college paper, you may need to do this, and if you're writing for a corporation, you're going to be using their buzzwords and such. But generally speaking, try to keep it clear.
5. Use contractions, colloquialisms, and conversational tone to make your writing more engaging and natural. This only works for fiction, nonfiction that has normal people (not professionals like doctors or lawyers and such) as the audience, and me.
6. Break the grammar rules when appropriate but know why and how you’re doing it. For example, do you know where commas go? How to use an ellipsis? Do you overuse exclamation marks!?!?
7. Use active voice, strong verbs, and sensory details to make your writing more vivid and dynamic. I consider this to be among the most important rules. Root out all of those do-nothing verbs like versions of "to be" or "go." Make your character run or shuffle along, not just go to the store.
8. Use transitions, headings, bullet points, and white space to improve the readability and flow of your writing. This is especially important in nonfiction work.
9. Use punctuation, capitalization, and formatting correctly and consistently to avoid confusion and errors. I tend to use Chicago style when I write, but you can also create your own style sheet and follow that. The point is, if you're always going to capitalize the word Error, then do it every time, otherwise, you've made an error.
10. Use a clear and consistent voice that reflects your personality and purpose. Of course, if you have no personality, then I suppose one ends up with very dry writing, but then again, maybe we need more of that in these days of overheated opinions and vast amounts of overwritten stupidity.
12. Proofread your writing carefully and check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. I am always amazed at how many people do not use the spellchecker in their word processing program. Word and Page and Word Perfect or whatever you're using, heck, even the browsers now have spell check in them.
13. Seek feedback from others and learn from their suggestions and critiques. But don't ask your mom. She will always love it and that's not the kind of critique you need. You may need to pay someone for a critique if it's a long work. It's worth a couple hundred bucks to hire an editor (I do that kind of work, should you ever need someone.).
______________
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 844th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.
#6 is so true. You can always tell when someone is breaking a grammar rule on purpose versus when someone has no idea what they're doing. Spell checker doesn't catch when you're using the wrong homonym, so it's always a good idea to reread things. I like putting it into "print" mode to make the page look different. I find I catch errors that I missed on several previous passes in the usual look of the software.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a writer who organizes much. 3-5 resonate with me. Stories I've written have had editors and no editors. Both have their pros and cons.
ReplyDeleteI need to work harder on some of these, especially #7..
ReplyDelete