Not many surprises there really, but apparently I use the word ‘things’ a lot. Who knew. Click on the image below for a bigger version.

Of course I don’t just mean telling any story. If the story you are telling is about what you ate today and the types of things you like to do, you are not differentiating yourself from the crowd.

Not only do you need to tell a story, but you need to tell an engaging story that your readers will be interested in.

One more important point: don’t create unnecessary flourishes in your writing or you’ll end up drowning in them. Keep it simple and just write what you mean.

Try out the four tips below in your next piece of writing.

1. Tell a story that is personal to you.

People are often concerned about telling a personal story about themselves (especially online). Don’t be afraid to put a bit of personality in your writing.

However, don’t tell a story that is going to make you or others feel uncomfortable. If you feel that the story is too personal, find another means of communicating what you want to say

But never forget the power a good personal story can put into your writing. People identify with other people, and don’t tend to identify much with abstract concepts. That’s just human nature.

2. Give audience-specific examples in your writing.

While this seems like obvious advice, we very often forget who we are writing for when we put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

Don’t just think about whether your audience will be interested in your topic, but think about whether the way you are communicating the topic is interesting to them.

For example, if you have to speak or write to a group of computer programmers about this year’s sales figures, they are probably going to have a difficult time relating to your topic.

In this instance, you could use a specific sales example from the computer or software industry that relates your example to what they do. Instead of speaking in generalities, get specific with examples that relate to your audience.

3. Tell a story your audience can relate to.

Now that you have established who your audience is, think about a the story you want to tell them.

Will they be able to accurately relate to the story you are going to tell? Is it too complex for them to follow? Too simplistic?

A good measure of this is to test your story out on a few potential audience members. Do they find your story and the way you’ve conveyed easy to comprehend? Or are they filled with questions half-way through your telling of the story?

4. Use a metaphor or story to convey your tacit, important points.

It’s easy to use a story to introduce some of the points you have that are easier to explain.

Don’t tell a story that tells people about numbers, facts or figures. Tell a story that has some emotional appeal.

In the example I talked about above, using a story from the software industry would be a great way to get computer programmers more interested in the sales figures you have to convey to them.

But don’t try to weave sales figures into an otherwise interesting story. It’s just not going to work.

Instead, focus on the specific actions you would like your audience to take. This is the tacit part of your writing, the part of your writing that should motivate them to do what you need them to do.

Always keep this in the back of your mind as you write each sentence. What do you need your audience to do? Does giving them a complete breakdown of all the sales figures by geography really make sense to them? Do they care? Does it help me achieve my end goal?

I hope these four points will help you in your writing.

The operative word here is a few. Most articles give you grammar tips or tell you about writing in the active voice to engage your reader — useful tips for sure, but they don’t tell you much about the actual process of writing well.

This article is not a list of ideas you should write about either — it’s more of a listing of reasons why you already know what you need to know to write effectively.

What you already know may sometimes surprise you.

1. Stop trying to achieve a voice or tone in your writing.

While many writing articles and instructors would fundamentally disagree with what I’m telling you, let’s just forget about that for a moment.

Most of the time, when people have trouble with the voice or tone of their writing, it’s because they are trying to write something that does not come naturally to them.

OK, so no, I’m not telling you to write your next academic paper like it was a conversation with your friend. Or your next grant proposal in haiku — I’m telling you to write in a natural, conversational tone.

As I’ll discuss more below, you can always go back later and formalize the tone of a particular piece of writing. The most difficult part is always just getting what you want to say down on paper.

2. Worry about grammar and spelling later.

Most people, when they sit down to write something, get very concerned about getting it right the first time. They spend a great deal of time looking up words in the dictionary, fiddling with their grammar and looking up synonyms (word processors seem to make this worse as we all fight to get rid of the red and green underlining).

While those are helpful tools to see where you’ve made mistakes, turn them off when doing your initial writing. Go back and edit for grammar and spelling when you’re done — and not before.

Otherwise you’ll spend all your time stressing about spelling and grammar and none of your time writing.

3. Don’t write for no reason. Write to convince people.

What do you want to say? Do you have a good reason for writing what you want to write?

I’ll be honest with you — if you don’t really understand what you’re trying to say, you’re not going to do a very good job of saying it. The most important thing to do is to get it out of your head.

Talk about your idea with friends, family or colleagues. Tell them what you want to write about. Many times, as you try to explain what it is you want to write about, you’ll clarify in our own mind what it is you want to say.

But don’t forget — just because others don’t like your topic doesn’t mean it’s not good. Be confident in what you want to write about. The thing to remember is to not only have confidence in your writing, but to have clarity and confidence.

For some good tips on how to become a persuasive writer, check out this post at earnticle.com.

4. If you think a phrase or sentence is particularly clever — take it out.

There’s nothing wrong with being smart, it’s looking like you’re trying to be smart that you want to avoid. Writing that sounds pompous or arrogant makes people not want to continue reading.

This is not to say you should take out your clever thoughts. Rather that you should take out your clever turns of phrase. A good test is to come back to that particularly clever turn of phrase in a week — it may have lost some of its cleverness after you’ve been away from it for a while.

5. Be funny — but not too funny — at the right places.

Try to include a little bit of humor in your writing (this is especially true if you’re writing for a business audience). In a speech or a presentation, insert something tastefully funny into it and you’ll win over your audience that much quicker.

Not sure if something’s funny? If you have to ask, it’s not (see my previous point above).

Don’t make your whole speech a series of jokes though. Part of the art of being really funny is to know when to stop.

One other suggestion: humor is a great way to get people to remember a part of your writing or speech. So don’t make a joke and then launch into a twenty slide speech on last year’s sales figures. Integrate humor into the parts of your writing that you want to be memorable.

For an example, check out the faux training video Ricky Gervais did for Microsoft. It’s a bit over the top at some points, but it’s certainly memorable.

6. Read the kind of things you want to write better — and imitate them.

The best way to become a good chef is not only get in the kitchen and try to cook, but also to watch the best chefs and imitate their techniques. Don’t steal their ideas (although there’s nothing wrong with properly citing somebody else’s work if it’s particularly good), but instead, become a better writer by imitating what they do well.

One alternative way to think of this is that every writer is a cumulation of everything he or she has ever read: styles, tones and messages included.

So if you want to become better at writing articles about home decor, read every article you can find about home decor.

And don’t just read the good stuff, read the bad stuff too. Part of learning what to do is also learning what not to do.

7. Stop thinking and start writing — and don’t stop.

OK, so I’m suggesting breaking another cardinal rule of writing. Writing instructors will often tell you to plan out what you want to write very carefully.

While a rough sketch of what you want to do is always good to give you a general plan, don’t let it cripple your writing. Instead of trying to plan everything out very carefully, just start writing.

Once you get some ideas down on paper, you may be surprised by what you have to say about a subject. Sometimes the words will simply flow when you just force yourself to get something (anything) down on paper.

And when you feel like you’ve reached a point where you’re out of ideas, try two or three times to continue. Try to make yourself keep writing. If you are really stuck, you’ll know it. Get up and take a break from your writing for a while. You’ll come back to it with renewed energy and fresh ideas.

And remember, like anything else, the more you write, the better you’ll get at it.

For more tips on writing online, I would suggest you check out this article. It’s got some great tips that will help you out.

If you are writing a blog (and even if you’re not, these tips can be applied to other forms of writing), I would also highly suggest this short article that provides you some advice on using stories to gain readership.