Bar-room Banter

Tip Of The Day — On using informal language and a conversational tone

This is part of a series of daily tips for writers, published to share ideas and suggestions on our craft. Everyone will have different advice on writing, so the tip below is just a personal selection which I hope you will find useful. Do share any of your own in the comments

Today’s tip is to use easy-to-understand, informal language (unless it is an academic piece of work), and to write in a conversational tone to make your story more approachable and relatable.

This does of course depend on where you are writing and for what purpose. So for writing on Medium, I find the most entertaining and readable articles to be those by writers who use lively informal language.

A couple of writers I follow spring to mind, Jason Provencio and Robin Wilding, who write in this style, (although their regular profanities may not be to everyone’s taste!).

When the writer is using such informal language it is like you are having a conversation with them in a bar, and it is easy to relate to. So following this advice, it makes sense to use a simple word rather than an unusual or complex one.

Trying to think of authors who exemplify this style best, Michael Lewis comes to mind. He has written several books on quite complex financial subjects, such as “Flash Boys”, “The Big Short” and most recently “Going Infinite” about crypto-currency and Sam Bankman-Fried, and he introduces his subjects using readily accessible language, and as though chatting to the reader — a review of last book on the link below if of interest:–

Similarly there are writers on complex scientific subjects like Richard Dawkins, author of “The Selfish Gene” and “The Blind Watchmaker” among other books, who still make their subject accessible, as he avoids dazzling the reader with scientific terms, references and acronyms, unless it is essential.

Of course there are exceptions to this recommendation to use easy-to-understand, informal language, for example if you are writing an academic essay or dissertation when you will want to use technical language to impress your supervisor or an academic audience.

Even with this audience in mind, one still wants the work to be readable: if a dictionary is required for every other word, few people are going to enjoy weaving their way through an ice-field of moguls.

I hope you found this article useful, and any tips of your own in the comments.

Previous tips:

Day 24 — Put a Tigger in your prose

Day 23 — Dedication — time, place, space

Day 22 — On spell-checking, Grammarly and proof-reading

Day 21 — The five unspoken commandments of Medium

Day 20 — George Orwell’s six tips on writing style

Day 19 — The importance of interaction

Day 18 — Replying to comments

Day 17: Engagement

Day 16- Attention-seeking behaviour — the importance of your first sentence –

Day 15 — Keep it snappy — headlines —

Day 14- Subject selection —

Day 13 — Making time —

Day 12 — Deadlines —

Day 11 — Layout —

Day 10 — Niches for Riches —

Day 9 — Do your own research —

Day 8 — Choosing your subject —

Day 7 — Reverse engineering success —

Day 6 — Planning —

Day 5 — Location —

Day 4 — Dictionary and thesaurus —

Day 3 –Quotations

Day 2 — Mind your language — learning new words

Day 1- The Notebook