10 Tips to Improve Your Writing Skills Efficiently
It isn’t easy being a writer. Sure, anybody can take a sheet of paper, or open a Word document more likely, and connect a few words, but it takes a different sort of skill and talent to actually create something other people would want to read. Remember that if you are writing to be published, or even writing on a public forum on the net, you are no longer writing for yourself.
You have to write in a way that will appeal to the average reader or to the niche reader if you are targeting a niche. Weirdly, the worst thing you can do while writing is trying too hard to impress the reader. Nothing makes you look less smart than when you are trying to look smart.
Writing is a talent that you are either born with, or take a long time to develop. A ten point article on a website is not going to make you an awesome writer, but it could point out to you where you may be going wrong, and what you could do to improve. All the very best to you!
1. Have substance
When you are writing your article, post, or story, are you sure you really have something to say? If you have nothing to say, and you still say a lot, you are just trying to bluff your readers into thinking they have read something meaningful. Trust us on this, readers do NOT like being bluffed.
2. Be specific rather than general
Consider these two sentences
“She lived with her pets”
“She lived with two Persian cats, a tortoise, and an Angel fish.”
It will be easier for readers to identify with your characters and your writings if you are specific in your description. It makes it easier for them to visualize what they are reading.
3. Keep your sentences short
No one wants to trudge through a sentence that is 50 words long. Keep your sentences short, precise, and grammatically correct. Don’t try to put more than one idea into a sentence.
4. Use simple words
Grand words don’t make you look smart. They make you look like you write with a thesaurus open. Don’t use difficult, complex words where simple ones would do just fine. Don’t say depart where you can say leave, avoid peruse where read would do.
5. Don’t write huge paragraphs
A long paragraph without any breaks just look like a chunk of text to most readers, and chances are they will just skim it or skip it altogether. Break your paragraphs sensibly and regularly.
6. Weed out fluff words
Fluff words are words like very, rather, tad, pretty, little, and other similar words that add nothing to your sentence and make you look pompous. Get out of the habit of using fluff words in every sentence.
7. Go active, not passive
Read the following sentences:
This book was read by me in 1922
I read this book in 1922.
The second sentence makes the reader feel the narrator or the character is actually doing something, and they feel involved in that action. The first sentence just sounds boring. You can’t avoid the passive voice completely, but don’t get too trigger happy with it.
8. Never repeat yourself
If you feel strongly about something, there are several ways of expressing that other than saying it twice or thrice. Don’t be redundant, because that not only makes it seem like you are stretching a point, you will also end it boring the heck out of your readers.
9. Don’t harp on, and don’t overwrite
When you have said all that you need to say on a particular point, move on. Don’t ramble on and on about it, or you’ll end up like the guy who everyone avoids because he likes the sound of his voice too much.
10. Be merciless in your editing
Once you have written your piece, forget that you are the writer, and read it in an unbiased way. Ruthlessly edit out any bit of flab that annoys you.
