The Most Underrated Tool to Help You Simplify Your Writing

Yes, every writer can simplify things with this self-made tool

Writing can be super complicated.

Talk about brainstorming ideas, finding supporting arguments, drafting that first draft, editing your draft multiple times, submitting it to publications, and waiting for decades for the inevitable rejection.

And we’re not even talking about aligning things to your audience’s tastes/publications’ style, staying true to your writing voice, and all the many little pieces that must fall in place before you produce a good enough article, much less a book.

We’ll leave talk about the latter for another post and focus on the former.

The writing process can be complicated. But you can simplify things. I don’t know about you, but I’m all for simplifying things any day.

And over the years, here’s the one self-made tool I’ve seen that helps to simplify your writing.

A writer’s checklist

With a simple checklist, you can nail down all the different processes involved in writing. You simplify things, give yourself some familiarity, and eventually, improve your writing.

All you need to do is identify a few slippery points that trip you over in writing. As you build that checklist, find solutions to these trouble factors.

Here are a few other benefits of a writing checklist:

It helps you cut the perfectionism

Many writers are prone to over-analyzing every word, every piece they draft. And for some of these writers, this overemphasis on getting everything perfect could lead to unnecessary delays that derail their growth.

That’s where a checklist comes in.

With that checklist, you can identify the absolute essentials of your writing rather than trying to look under every irrelevant stone.

When you address these crucial points with your checklist, you can overcome your fears of not producing the best content.

A checklist helps you build consistency

When you run your final output through a quality control checklist, you know you can streamline every work to fit a trusted model.

Your readers know what they can expect from you, and you can increase your chances of meeting those expectations.

Depending on the many advanced items on your checklist, you can better correct for a consistent tone and style. Yes, little things, but with massive upsides in writing.

It’ll help you in your efforts to write words that stand out.

What goes into your checklist?

Sections: Intro, body, conclusion

I’ll make exceptions for poetry and 100-wordish short-from posts that don’t always follow the standard rigors of the intro, body, and conclusion formatting.

By the way, those are some of the most challenging content types to put out there.

Beyond them, though, you should ensure your articles can make these clear distinctions on their own if you’re not there to explain things to readers.

Is it easy for readers to navigate their way from the intro to the main body of your work? Does your writing hold that logical sequence of ideas for anyone but you to follow?

Too often, many writers can’t step out of their viewpoints to play random reader and analyze things from other angles.

But you’re not your reader. And the reader may not know the full context within which you wrote your article. That’s where you take steps to see if your message is apparent from a neutral’s viewpoint. Including this on your checklist will go a long way.

The main argument and supporting points

Every article you publish should communicate a central idea and be backed with some supporting points (where required).

If you can’t identify the main point your article communicates, readers will find it hard to point it out.

If your supporting points don’t strengthen this central idea, you risk confusing your readers even more. Can you see one way writers hurt their chances of succeeding by failing to connect these simple dots?

Before you even type out your first line, always outline the main argument you intend to make with your writing. When you’re editing, see if what you’ve written amplifies that point or deviates from it.

Punctuation

Of all the things you can bake into your checklist, you can’t leave out those pesky little marks. I’m not here to highlight the difference between a colon and a semi-colon per se.

With punctuation marks, you can change the meaning of sentences, emphasize important points, and, most crucially, give readers the best reading experience.

Seeing these immense powers of punctuation signs, you can’t take this aspect lightly.

Yet, how often do you read an article looking for just the right punctuation to elevate a sentence or clear a confusion you picked up reading a line?

Punctuating your writing is essential if you want readers to understand what you’ve written.

One of the most profound tools you can depend on to improve your writing is a simple checklist. I can’t recommend that highly enough for new writers.

As you return to this checklist of points to address, you’ll get used to them.

Soon, even on autopilot, you can run your work through this simple checklist to help you simplify your writing process. But that’s not all. A checklist will also help you produce consistently more outstanding work.

If you found what you just read useful, can you support my work by buying me a cup of coffee here? You can also grab my free writing guide here.