I’ve gotten a few tips on writing from articles I’ve read on the subject.
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.
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December 1st, 2006 at 1:55 pm
On the whole I agree with many of your points, although I disagree that most of the articles out there are about grammar and such–I’ve seen quite a few on process if you find the right resources. A couple of specific thoughts:
“Stop trying to achieve a voice or tone in your writing.”
I suppose I both agree and disagree with this one. I agree that paying too much attention to your “voice” can backfire. But it can be helpful to play around with different aspects of voice just to flex your muscles and help you develop a wider repertoire–this is one of the ways that you can naturally allow your voice to develop. The trick is to see it as play, I think, rather than specifically crafting ‘a voice’.
“If you think a phrase or sentence is particularly clever — take it out.”
This one is a fairly old piece of wisdom. You’ll normally hear it phrased as “murder your darlings.” It’s one of those things that’s well-understood in theory, but that many writers still have a lot of trouble with because it’s just plain painful to execute.
“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.”
This probably depends on the type and level of class you’re taking. The concept of removing thought from the process of writing is another well-understood process long used by instructors to break through the “inner editor” or “inner critic” when writing. It’s usually referred to as free-writing.
I don’t want to seem like I’m saying, ho-hum, heard these before, because these are good suggestions. Perhaps it’s because you seem more concentrated on business writing that you haven’t encountered some of these as much–they’re more commonly taught in creative writing classes. It’s a good idea sometimes to apply those creative rules of thumb to more expository projects, so I’m glad to see these here! It sounds like you might find more of what you’ve been looking for if you explored more of the creative writing sites out there, even though they might not seem directly relevant at first.
December 1st, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for your comments Heather. I think you raise some excellent points.
You’re right that my approach to this is largely from a business perspective — while I think there are some major differences between creative writing and business writing, there are also certain commonalities between them. Coming from a literature background before entering the business world, I’m definitely familiar with many of these methods and tools.
I absolutely agree that a creative writing instructor will often be more open to allowing students to free write — however, I think business instructors are sometimes less forgiving when it comes to their writing methodology and processes.
I definitely don’t want to suggest that all writing processes or instruction is a waste of time (you’re right again that there are many worthwhile resources out there to help you write). I like your suggestion about creative writing sites — part of my latent goal here was to attempt to take some creative writing concepts and to apply them to business writing — so I think pulling in some more creative writing resources to this article would certainly make sense.
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
In point 6, should “right” be “write”, or do I misunderstand what you are trying to say?
December 2nd, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Hi Luke
Great website. I am impressed. Really good points.
December 3rd, 2006 at 9:32 pm
Thanks for pointing that out Grammar Nazi. I’ve corrected the typo.
August 3rd, 2007 at 2:29 am
It was an amazing article, saved offline version
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:38 pm
[...] Another difference is that I’m not sitting here at my computer at home writing it. That’s got too many interruptions attached to it. There’s my internet connection. There are the dogs. There are endless cups of coffee, the laundry, the garden, research, and writing my blog. All the things Cathy does, incidentally. Write what you know. [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
[...] only about what they know best. After all, haven’t we been told time and again that we should write what we know? The biggest problem with doing this is that we never broaden our horizons. We simply regenerate [...]
August 4th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
One more tip for your consideration: Outline first. One of the most frustrating parts of writing is having to figure out what to say next. If you have an outline, you just look to the outline.
While it may seem like extra work to write an outline, it’s much easier to see the context of your article in outline form, making it easier to reorganize. Also, reorganizing an outline is simple, but reorganizing a written work requires rewriting segues and introductory paragraphs. The end result is an outline can save a substantial amount of time and relieve writers block.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I agree that an outline can often be an important tool to get the ideas flowing, as well as to give your writing structure. The only caveat I would add is that if you’re spending too much time on your outline, your losing out on time you could be writing. Don’t forget you can always go back and edit later.
Thanks for the additional tip Minnesota Attorney!
August 24th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
very good tips you give. Thanks.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:08 am
I totally agree with these tips specifically to this one: Worry about grammar and spelling later. Many students are too conscious of the technical side of their academic writing even at the start of the writing process. this may hinder creative juices from naturally flowing out. Just write everything down and edit later right? Nice post.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Tip number four is for me the most important of all, especially for a budding writer. Almost all seasoned author, novelist or poet will agree that in order to produce a good material, one has to write with his heart first, then with his head. Meaning he should just let everything flow naturally, not minding the grammar and spelling. Editing can be done after every finished paragraph. I know this is effective because I applied this principle in my thesis writing.
October 17th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Good article. Thanks for your post. I loved this article very much. I agree to all points in this article. keep up the great work.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
One of the best compilation of short writing tips I’ve read so far. Nice.
I know what you mean by the no.1 tip. Sometimes, instructors tend to be so rigid in the proper tone that a person can get lost finding his own voice and style on paper… Also, no.2 is something that everyone should (really, really) strictly practice. Your creativity and flow of thoughts tend to get thwarted when you have to pause every now and again for grammar errors.
April 5th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I like tip number 2 the best because it’s time-consuming for a writer to check everytime he/she writes.