When it comes to being a good writer, it’s not often that we are amazing at it from the first go. Yes, you can have some more natural talent than others but in most cases, some practice is required.
The best way to begin your writing journey is to write blogs or short stories.
So luckily for you, I have done the research and found some of the best ways to start and become a better writer.
Let’s begin!
Develop a daily writing habit.
Try your best to write every day, whether it be journaling or something a little more catered to your lifestyle. The more you write, the better you will become. Writing what you know is another great way to become a better writer as it feels a little more comfortable, so start there and see where it takes you.
Reading is important to writing.
Reading helps expand your vocab skills, therefore the more you read the better your writing will become in time. The reading material should be something that challenges you a little – so I’m not talking about children’s books. If you’re not the best reader, start with young adult fiction. I have always found that genre easy to read and engaging. Reading high quality journals or academic writings will definitely boost your vocabulary more than a young adult book, but start where you are comfortable and work your way up from there.
Grammar is key.
Grammar and spelling are super important so keep your eye out for commonly misspelt or grammatically incorrect sentences, rereading your work will help you to minimise publishing with any errors. Brush up on your grammatical skills too so you know when to add in commas and other punctuation. With auto-correct and other grammar assisting tools available it is much less common these mistakes go unnoticed but it is still a good practice to get into.
Think about structure
The structure of your writing is very important for an audience to be able to read your writing clearly. A strong outline is necessary to ensure the foundation of your writing doesn’t crumble, next comes the introduction in which you want to grab your audience’s attention. When starting a paragraph put the most important information in the opening sentence then follow up with evidence and examples. You want to be building your argument throughout your paragraph so stay on topic, don’t throw new ideas in halfway through. Finish strong with a conclusion that summarises all your most important points.
Remember when you were at school and you had to write essays, all structures are the same, so map it out and stick to the plan.
Always think about your audience.
Depending on who your audience is you may need to make some adaptations to your writing tone, style and length. Some audiences will lose interest if your writing is too jovial and vice versa so make sure you know whose eyes will be on your writing.
Cut the filler phrases and buzzwords.
Give your audience the real deal with your writing. Get rid of all the fluff. Drop the word ‘very’ from your vocabulary and instead use more creative words. Don’t try to make up the word count by throwing useless words into your sentences, it will actually make your writing harder to read and you will lose your reader somewhere in the five words you used instead of one. It is good practice to avoid filler words so start practising that now.
Sign up to free writing courses
Learning to write well doesn’t have to cost a lot! There are heaps of free writing courses online you can sign up for so do some research and see what you can find.
Read your writing out loud.
When we read our writing out loud we can often find mistakes or just realise the phrasing could use some work. The flow of your writing may look perfect on paper but saying it aloud is always a more effective way to notice flaws or to hear a well-written sentence come to life.
Ask for feedback from your peers.
We may all think we are expert writers or on the other hand, we may think we are terrible writers so peer feedback is very helpful. Our peers can often identify things we aren’t even aware of so it is never a bad idea to let another set of eyes look over your work.
Keep your writing human
You can still allow your personality to come through into your writing while keeping it professional. Don’t lose your audience by over complicating your writing, you can still give the facts without being too analytical or “boring”.
Research your topic
If your writing requires you to have a certain level of understanding, rather than making things up as you go – do some research. You don’t need to necessarily include any information you find in your research as direct quotes (and I’m not saying plagiarise) but doing some background research will help you write better and therefore give your audience a better understanding of what you are writing too.
Keep it short, simple and readable
Sometimes the best writing is kept short, to the point and easy for anyone to read. There is of course the time and place for more lengthy kinds of writing, but if you’re looking to improve your writing start with short and sweet around 500-1000 words (remember without the fluff!). With practice, you will find it easier to bang out longer and more succinct writing in no time.
In summary, writing is never an easy process to start, so the best way to get this going is really to start, and once you begin, you will find you will have a whole blog done before you know it.
If you need help, look back on all our past blogs and see what our writers have written over the year and how we have mapped out our articles. Alternately if you’d rather someone did the writing for you, reach out and let us pair you with one of our talented writers in our team to assist you with some copy writing for your business, brand or socials.