12 Tips to Improve Your Writing Overnight
We all know that the best way to improve your writing is to write. You’ve probably been told since the beginning of your journalism studies that practice is the best way to become a better writer. I’m not here to debate this mantra because I’m certain it’s true. But there are some simple things you can do personally and teach your staff to do that will improve the quality of writing you publish overnight. Here are 12 such things.
1. Use active voice
Active voice is shorter than passive voice. It’s also more exciting to read. Here’s a little tip on how to use zombies for active writing.
2. Save your money
Pretend every word costs you $1 and save your money. This is perhaps the best tip I can offer on writing tight. Challenge every word. Do this sentence-by-sentence and graph-by-graph. If your writing makes sense without a word, cut it.
Check out my post on 11 Tips to Tighten Your Writing for more on this topic.
3. Count your commas
How many necessary commas are in your piece? First, get rid of the unnecessary ones. Then, simplify the sentences with more than one comma by rewriting them as two sentences. Vary your sentence length and structure, but don’t bog your readers down with bulky, unnecessary clauses. Which leads me to my next tip:
4. Avoid subordinate clauses
Subordinate clauses at the beginning of sentences frustrate your reader. They have to dig through your sentence for the meat. If it needs a comma after it, question whether there’s another way to write the sentence or if it’s necessary.
5. Delete habit words
We all have unnecessary words that we sprinkle throughout our writing. That is a word I use unnecessarily. I edit my writing once just to remove thats. Very is a word I hate. It adds nothing to your writing, but is used often.
6. Write in subject-verb-object format
This type of writing almost always is active and results in simple sentences that are easy to read and understand.
7. Write in time-date-place order
Don’t write that something will happen Tuesday in Tulsa at 8 p.m. Make it 8 p.m. Tuesday in Tulsa.
8. Avoid semicolons and parenthesis
Semicolons are for complex sentences, which you shouldn’t be writing. Parenthesis are for non-essential information, which you shouldn’t include. Cut it if it’s not worth a sentence of its own.
9. Use said
Get comfortable with writing that a source said something. Said is the only word you use in your writing, even if it seems repetitive. Every synonym for said is editorial. Think about it: explain, exclaim, suggest, point out… they’re all loaded words. Just use said.
10. Eliminate adjectives
They are imprecise, mean different things to different people and they make your writing read more like a sales pitch than a news story.
11. Attribute at the end
You could start nearly every sentence in your story with “so-and-so said,â€Â but that would get pretty monotonous for the reader. Instead, always attribute at the end of the sentence unless it’s impossible to do so.
Griffin said place attribution at the end of the sentence.
Place attribution at the end of the sentence, Griffin said.
See how the second one just sounds better?
12. Quote sparingly
Use just a few great quotes in your story. Paraphrase everything else. The reader doesn’t need to know precisely what someone said each time. It’s a story, not a transcript.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of writing tips. I could have written 100 or more tips, but that would be overwhelming instead of helpful. Let’s just start with a dozen. Print out this list. Hang it on your computer. Follow these 12 rules and you will improve your writing overnight. Then follow them each time you practice your craft until they become automatic.
Kenna Griffin is an assistant professor of mass communications and director of student publications at Oklahoma City University. She is the author of the Prof KRG blog, which serves as a practical resource for student journalists. She is a journalist, reader, shoe lover, Ph.D. candidate, wife, mother of two, and the spoiler of a couple of adorable dogs.