8 Simple Ways to Improve Your Writing
Write better, not just more.
Here’s an ugly truth about writing. If you have bad habits, the more you write, the more ingrained those bad habits become until your bad habits become your reputation as a writer. Oh yeah, he’s really hard to read. No thanks…
Your brain is magnificent, dear writer. Twinkling like stars in the night sky and that’s not even fanciful, it’s literally how your brain works. Tiny electrical charges jump from cell to cell as you walk, talk, live, laugh — and write.
When you do a new thing, it’s awkward because your brain doesn’t have a path for that action yet. Like stumbling through the forest at night with nothing but the odd firefly to light your way.
But, do the thing enough times and you can do it without thinking about it because frequency built a path made of lights in your brain.
When was the last time you had to think about how to walk? Ever watched a baby maneuver tiny fingers to pick up a cheerio? You don’t have to think about those anymore. Your brain can do them on autopilot.
That’s why I hate when people tell writers to just write more.
As a writer, you want to touch people.
Affect them. Make them feel something. Remember your name. Weak writing won’t do that for you. Neither will volume.
A better suggestion would be to write a lot — yes — but pick a technique to improve your writing and focus on that one thing until it becomes habit. Then move on to another one. So all that writing you’re doing isn’t just repeating your bad habits, but developing good ones.
We don’t improve simply by churning out volume. We get better by practicing specific skills or exercises with enough frequency to gain proficiency.
A few techniques, practiced into habit, can make a big difference.
Here’s 8 Simple Techniques to Make Your Writing More Memorable and More Powerful
We’re not talking technical skills so much as storytelling. Become a great storyteller and much good flows from that.
1. Find the hidden beginning…
Read over your draft and find the place where it gets interesting. Delete everything before that. Or move it down, after the strong part.
Writers often start slow and “build up” to their story. If it’s non-fiction, they start by explaining why they’re qualified to write the piece. Doesn’t matter if it’s a post on the internet or a book you’re working on.
And that’s fine. But not at the beginning. That belongs later. After you’ve hooked the reader.
It’s a real shame when you lose a reader because you started with the boring part. Save the boring bits for later.
Usually, the right beginning is already in your draft. You just didn’t start with it, so you need to find it. Like playing Where’s Waldo with your own words.
Find the best part. Start with that, and rearrange. You’ll be amazed how much more leeway readers give you for the odd gnarly bits if you start with enough strength or intrigue to capture their interest at the beginning.
“My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head.“ — Susan Sontag
2. Swap generic nouns for specific nouns…
He’s not walking a dog, he’s walking a Dachshund. Or a Pit Bull. A man walking his Dachshund and a man walking his Pit Bull are not the same picture, see?
He’s not wearing a hat, it’s a fedora. Grey. Battered.
She’s not picking flowers, she’s picking daisies. Or peonies, or pansies.
The beach is not littered in trash, it’s littered with beer cans, cigarette butts, the charred ashes of a bonfire and one blue plastic glove.
Writers paint with words and you do little justice to the story you’re telling when you opt for vague words instead of specific ones.
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” — Mark Twain
3. Don’t dump your emotions, evoke theirs…
We all know powerful writing makes the reader feel something. That doesn’t mean you need to dump your emotions all over the page.
Dumping your emotions and evoking emotion in the reader are not the same.
In acting school, actors are taught that if they break down on stage, no one will be able to understand a word they’re saying and they’ll ruin the show for the viewer. Good acting isn’t about the actor, it’s about the viewer.
Same thing with writing. It’s about the reader.
Don’t tell me he’s mean and narcissistic and has a temper. No, no. Let him kick the dog and punch a hole in the wall so I can hate him for my own reasons.
You know that part about specific nouns in #2? Like that, but with actions. That’s kind of what “show, don’t tell” means. :)
“I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.” — Stephen King
4. Strip out purple prose…
You know what purple prose is, right? It’s text that’s so ornate or flowery it breaks the flow of the story and calls attention to itself.
In her book, Between the Lines, Jessica Morrell says “in purple prose, skin is always creamy, eyelashes always glistening, heroes always brooding and sunrises always magical.”
Purple prose is why Stephen King says the road to hell is paved with adverbs.
And you know that saying about murdering your darlings…
Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — wholeheartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings. — Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
The pieces of “exceptionally fine writing” — purple prose. Murder them.
If it doesn’t move the story along, it doesn’t belong.
“When a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling. — Stephen King
5. Listen for cadence…
I had a history teacher that put half the class to sleep just by speaking. We’ve all known someone who speaks in dreary monotone.
Sometimes, we write that way, and the reader’s eyes glaze over and they click away, bored, and it’s not that the story was boring, but that the writing didn’t flow. Having a good story and telling it well aren’t the same.
Compelling writing has cadence. A rhythm, like music.
Here’s a great bit from 100 ways to Improve Your Writing, by Gary Provost.
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.
Now listen… I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. I use sentences of medium length.
And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
Know how you develop rhythm in your writing? You read it out loud. How hard is that?Just read it out loud. Where you stumble, the reader will, too.
“Good writing is like music. It has its distinctive rhythm, its pace, flow, cadence.” — Leonard Ray Teel
6. Cut half your words.
Concise writing is a real art and skill. We tend to ramble and add in bits that don’t need to be there. A good editor can usually cut most writing in half without losing any meaning, and make it more powerful in the process.
Fluff is for kittens.
Strive to be concise. Write your draft and then see if you can condense the piece to half the length. If not half, try to edit out at least a third. I promise, you’ll learn a ton about writing more powerfully. It will become habit, and your writing will get stronger.
“Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.” — Cicero
7. Learn your verbal tics…
Have you ever edited an audio? Just taking out the ums and ahs make it sound better instantly. But you’ll also notice verbal tics. We all have them. Strip out the 37 times you said “so anyway…” and it’s going to sound even better.
We all do it. A guy I know always adds “in the morning” after a.m. Like, — It’s 10 a.m. in the morning. — It’s 4 p.m. in the afternoon. Dude. Redundant.
Here’s another one. Irregardless. It’s not even a word.
I wrote about a New York Literary agent who rejects books in less than five pages if he finds too much sloppy writing. He calls it fluff and filler. Really, sloppy writing is mostly made of verbal tics.
There’s a lot of common verbal tics. A lot. I made a list of 26 of them.
The point isn’t to be a pedantic jerk. Honestly — most of them will be a non-issue for you. But a few of them will see you and whisper hello.
They drag down your writing. You’ll do yourself a favor if you learn which verbal tics have your name on them and work on cutting them.
“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” — Mark Twain
8. If it’s a fact, prove it.
Listen, you’re a writer. You don’t need to justify your opinions. And you don’t need to water them down to make them palatable by saying things like I think or I believe. We know you think them. You’re writing them.
But let me tell you the fastest way to lose credibility as a writer. State facts that aren’t true. You won’t lose credibility with everyone. Just the people who know you’re wrong. Every. Single. Time. It adds up.
You don’t even have to go to the library and look it up. We have Google now. If you’re stating a fact, cite it. No exceptions. A simple link to a credible site goes a long way to establishing credibility. Nuff said.
“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible.” — Edward R Murrow
Writing is a skill. Skills are learned…
Not everyone wants to write. Some people can’t see or hear well enough to write. That’s what writing is, largely. Seeing and hearing. A writer is someone who sees stories everywhere. Telling them — that’s a different beast.
No one can teach a non-writer to see stories all around them. But if you see them, learning to tell them powerfully and memorably is a skill. And how wonderful that skills are things that can be learned.
“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” — Ernest Hemingway
Before You Go…
If you’re interested in writing or marketing, you may enjoy my Friday emails. Check out the back issues at https://lindac.substack.com/