5 Pieces of Advice that Have Drastically Improved My Writing
Write every day isn’t one of them
When I started writing online, one of the first things I noticed was the sheer number of articles on how to write good articles. As I devoured all the writing advice I could find, I soon found myself in the middle of a tug of war— for every piece of advice, there was someone else advising the exact opposite.
Write and publish like a freight train vs craft each piece with meticulous effort. Use vague clickbaity titles vs honest clear titles. Good formatting to make the article shine vs minimal formatting to make the writing shine. Use shorter paragraphs vs meatier paragraphs.
But since writing is art and art has no rules, it makes sense that there is no universally agreed-upon piece of advice.
After wading through these waters of conflicting writing wisdom, I have found these 5 nuggets of writing advice to have had the most positive impact on my writing.
Focus and Flow to the End
In my early days, writing used to be an arduous process and a single article would take hours. I would write one sentence, rewrite it a couple of times until it sounded “right”, and then move on to the next.
Similarly, a paragraph done, then edit. A subsection done, then edit.
If I wanted to insert an image or quote, I would go hunting for them and this would break my flow. The result would be hours spent to achieve subpar writing.
Then, one day I came across this advice in an article by Rebecca Graf. To quote her,
If you focus on editing as you write, you take away so much of that potential. You are filing down the rough edges when you are still chiseling away at the stone to find the sculpture.
It made sense so to test it out, I turned off the internet, opened notepad, cracked my knuckles, and started typing away. I was done with the first draft in less than an hour.
Also, the quality was much better than my usual ones. Needless to say, I was bamboozled.
The reason was simple. By not editing while writing, I was able to tap into flow. Moreover, fast writing tends to be better writing, as celebrated American author Ray Bradbury says,
In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth dead falling or tiger-trapping.
Make Every Sentence as Short as Possible and as Long as Necessary
Earlier, my sentences were verbose. I would use unnecessary words and overly explain as if I was tutoring a chimpanzee as opposed to writing for intelligent human readers.
The beautiful part about “Make every sentence as short as possible and as long as necessary” is that this sentence itself is as short as possible and as long as necessary.
Concise and crisp writing shines. To quote the legendary literary figure, Samuel Johnson,
A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who instead of aiming a single stone at an object takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.
I started chopping down my sentences and the quality rose visibly. I realized I wasn’t anywhere close when my friend Ria Tagulinao managed to shorten quite a few sentences in an already “optimized” draft of mine.
I am sure she would be able to cut short a lot of sentences in this as well. But I’m getting better with time. As the age-old saying goes, “Practise makes perfect.”
Never Start with an Empty Draft
One of the things I used to dread the most was powering up my laptop, opening Medium, and creating a new draft.
I have spent many an hour staring at the expanse of white trying to write something, only to scrap it and go back to staring. I am sure you can relate.
An empty draft is every writer’s nightmare.
With this advice, I started planning and creating “skeleton” drafts in advance — drafts with the featured image, title, subtitle, and the rough structure of the article chalked out.
Now, every time I open a draft, I have a clear idea of what to write and don’t have to tear my hair out in frustration.
Write Freely, Edit Ruthlessly
In my early days of plowing till the end, I would be so proud of the end product, and to keep my writing “intact”, I would barely edit the first draft and call it the final one.
Editing is painful. We are attached to our writing and changing or removing sentences feels like killing our babies. I was writing freely but was editing liberally and this took away from the quality. To quote William Zinsser,
Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost. That idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft; we can’t believe that it wasn’t born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn’t. Most writers don’t initially say what they want to say, or say it as well as they could.
To edit ruthlessly, I imagine that I am editing someone else’s article. Try doing the same. This works well because it does away with the attachment aspect.
Well, I am yet to reach Tim Denning’s level of brutality who says, “Your editing should ideally leave the final piece half the length of your first draft.”
When You Can Use a Plainer Word, Use It
I used to think that good writing was all about flexing that vocabulary and for every word, I would choose the most complex of its synonyms.
I would gloat when I got messages like “Damn! I’ll need a dictionary to read your writing.”, or “How do you have such a huge vocabulary.”
But no. This quote made me realize that writing at its core was a writer talking to his readers. What mattered was not how complex or masterful a piece of writing was but how it made the readers feel.
The biggest change I noticed after implementing this was the spike in the average reading times, highlights, and read ratio. This meant that more people were actually reading through instead of clicking away.
“Writing at its core was a writer talking to his readers.”
To Summarize
Writing is an art and as a result, there’s no single universally accepted piece of advice.
For every idea or thought, there’s an opposite school of thought so it’s important to try and see what works for you. These 5 worked well for me and can for you as well:
- Don’t edit while you write. Start, tap into flow and plow away will the end without stopping to edit anywhere.
- Make every sentence as short as possible and as long as necessary. Cut out unnecessary words, reframe phrases in a simpler manner, and swap out complex words for simpler ones.
- Never start with an empty draft. Prepare skeleton drafts with the title, subtitle, section headings, and overall structure chalked out in advance.
- Edit ruthlessly. Don’t get attached to your first draft and while editing, imagine that it’s someone else’s article. Ruthlessly cut out unnecessary or low-impact words and sentences.
- Use simple words. When you can think of a simpler alternative to a word that won’t reduce the impact or the meaning you want to convey, use it.