Writing, like everything else, requires practice. It may not seem that way because it’s something we all learn how to do in school. But that’s precisely why it’s important to work to improve your writing—it’s hard to see the nuance in something when you’ve been doing it for so long that you do it on autopilot.
So, what’s the best way to get out of that mindset and make a conscious effort in your writing? For me, it’s looking at a few tips that can make my writing better and measuring them against something I’ve written. I recommend that you find a blog post or something else you’ve written and see how well you incorporate these tips on your own.
In this post, I’ll show you my top nine ways to instantly improve your writing, whether you’re working on an article, book, or short story.
1. Think Big First
When you’re writing something, you’re likely working with an idea and some vision of what you want to communicate. But when you also create a clear plan for how you want to structure your piece, you’ll save yourself a lot of time that would have been spent sorting through your ramblings.
Somewhere in the early stages of writing, take a step back and figure out how you’re going to organize your piece in order to accomplish your goals.
Ask yourself:
- What am I trying to accomplish with this piece?
- What journey am I taking the reader through?
- How do similar articles or books share and build upon information?
These questions will help you sharpen your vision and shape whatever you have into a structure that best serves your readers.
2. Vary Paragraph Length
Have you ever opened a book only to be welcomed with a wall of text? Or maybe you glossed over my single-paragraph blog post example? Seeing a big block of words makes you want to close whatever you’re reading and never open it again.
What about a blog post filled with sparse, two-sentence paragraphs? You might get the impression that it doesn’t have very much to offer. And despite its brevity it’s exhausting to read.
The problem isn’t necessarily in the content, but in how inviting it is (or isn’t) at first glance. Our brains are great at making judgments quickly, but this tends to make us picky when we turn our focus to something mentally stimulating like reading. If there isn’t a pleasing balance of text and whitespace, we’re turned off.
Vary the lengths of your paragraphs while you write to create that balance. Balance gives your reader some breaks between longer chunks and makes your overall piece more visually inviting and interesting.
3. Vary Sentence Length and Structure
Just like paragraphs, sentences require some level of balance, too. When you write sentences, they need to complement each other. If you don’t add variety, your sentences don’t work together to serve your goals. Even if your readers can’t put their finger on what’s wrong, they’ll feel as though your work falls flat and move on.
Did you notice something about that paragraph? Did it maybe feel like it was dragging along, or like it was getting difficult to comprehend the longer you read? I sure feel it.
There are a couple problems with that first paragraph. Because the sentences are all generally the same length, the paragraph lacks enough momentum to carry you to the end. You start to get tripped up as you read through. You may even need to reread the paragraph a couple times to fully comprehend what it’s trying to convey.
The other problem is the sentence structure, or more formally, syntax. Each sentence starts with an introductory clause, and most of them follow an “If…, then…” format. We read sentences like this with a certain inflection. So, when you read it to yourself, every single sentence has that same inflection, which gives it a “sing-song-y” quality that’s downright annoying. You get caught up in the rhythm and how it sounds instead of absorbing what the words are actually saying.
You may have heard these concepts referred to as “flow.” Mixing up length and structure within a paragraph breathes life into your writing. The reader’s brain flows from concept to concept effortlessly, and the writing itself almost becomes invisible, letting your ideas take the reader’s focus.
Break up long, winding sentences with short, snappy ones to keep the reader’s brain moving. And vary the way your sentences are structured so your readers don’t tune you out.
4. Use Active Voice
This is advice that you’re likely familiar with, but it’s worth stating nonetheless. In general, you want to make your writing active, not passive.
What exactly does this mean? It means that information is revealed in this basic order: subject, verb, acted-upon noun.
- “I never understood my dog’s desire to dig holes in my backyard” vs. “The desire of my dog to dig holes in my backyard was something I never understood.”
- “After they ate, Charlie asked Ricky if he wanted to take a walk” vs. “After they ate, Ricky was asked if he wanted to take a walk [by Charlie].”
- “It was lunch time when Olive realized that she hadn’t eaten breakfast” vs. “It was lunch time when the realization [by Olive] occurred that the breakfast hadn’t been eaten.”
Why is this advice so widely given? Because active sentences make for clearer writing. For English speakers, our brains are great at collecting information in that order—we want to know who did what to whom.
You feel like you’re getting right to the point when you read an active sentence. Passive sentences often give the impression that something is being obscured. Have you noticed that passive voice is often used in legal and healthcare documents? The lack or obscurity of a subject is common (like in this sentence!).
Keep in mind, though, that sometimes passive voice is the right way to go. Here’s when you might use it:
- If there isn’t a specific subject. I just did this above: “The lack or obscurity of a subject [in their sentences] is common” vs. “Their sentences commonly lack or obscure the subject.” There’s some other stuff going on in that first example (like changing the verbs lack and obscure into nouns), but it’s fitting in this context because the sentence is about the missing subjects. Also, introducing “their” as a subject is confusing; do I mean the sentences or the writers of the sentences?
- When you want the emphasis on something or someone other than the subject. For example: “No one noticed the flickering light in the abandoned house that night” vs. “The flickering light in the abandoned house went unnoticed that night.” The active version emphasizes the people who didn’t notice the light flickering, whereas the passive version sends your focus to the light in the abandoned house.
Depending on what you’re writing, you may find that you switch between active and passive voice. This is normal! But most of the time, it makes sense to get to the point and share information as clearly as possible.
5. Finish What You Start
When you start a sentence, you’re creating a rule that the rest of the sentence must follow. In other words, the second half of the sentence must match what’s set up in the first half. This might sound silly to point out, but this is one of the most common mistakes I see when I’m browsing in the blogosphere.
It might help to see some examples of what not to do.
“Pensive in thought, the trees passed one by one outside the car window,” vs. “Pensive in thought, I watched the trees pass one by one outside the car window.”
The first sentence has a dangling participle, “pensive in thought.” It’s meant to describe the subject “I,” but instead it’s not describing anything. That’s why we say that it’s dangling. To fix it, we give it something to modify before moving on to describing the trees.
“With soft white fur, I excitedly pet the little dog,” vs. “I excitedly pet the little dog with soft white fur.”
The first sentence has a misplaced modifier, “with soft white fur.” The fur belongs to the little dog, but instead, it applies to the subject “I.” To fix it, we put the modifier where it belongs, so it describes the dog.
“Each get a free T-shirt for participating,” vs. “Each gets a free T-shirt for participating.”
The first sentence doesn’t have subject-verb agreement, meaning that the subject “each” doesn’t agree with the verb “get.” “Each” is a singular indefinite pronoun, which is a fancy way to say that it refers to a singular person or thing, we just don’t necessarily call out that person or thing explicitly.
“Neither my dog nor my cats hears the man picking the lock on the back door,” vs. “Neither my dog nor my cats hear the man picking the lock on the back door.”
The first sentence doesn’t have subject-verb agreement, meaning that the (compound) subject of “my dog and my cats” doesn’t agree with the verb “hears.” Compound subjects generally take the plural verb. (If you’re curious, the exceptions are if the subjects are treated singularly, like “Peanut butter and jelly is my favorite sandwich,” or if they refer to the same person or thing, like “The author and professor of literature is leading our class today.”)
“He doesn’t like big companies because they’re unfair to workers, slow to adapt to change, and have too much control over the stock market,” vs. “He doesn’t like big companies because they’re unfair to workers, slow to adapt to change, and too powerful in the stock market.”
So make sure that your modifiers are well-placed, your subjects and verbs agree, and your sentences use parallel structure. Finish what you start.
6. Move from Simple to Complex
One of the pillars of clear writing is the rule of complexity: go from simple to complex. This applies to sentences, paragraphs, and entire works like blog posts or nonfiction books.
See, I just did it.
As we read and listen, our brains are taking in raw words, connecting them to each other in sentences, creating pictures in our heads, and attributing meaning by mapping it all to our own ideas, beliefs, and prejudices. And sometimes, we’re also crafting our response to what we’re learning. All in real time. Take a second to absorb just how wild that is.
When you’re communicating something, you want to help your readers’ brains work efficiently. Don’t start with new, complicated terminology, and don’t dump a bunch of information at them right away. Give them simple, digestible information upfront to get their gears turning. Then, build up to the more complex ideas. They’ll have great context from what you’ve already told them to help them break down the difficult stuff.
7. Edit, and Edit Well
Editing isn’t just a quick skim right as you’re about to publish. I learned this the hard way from school assignments, blogging, work emails, and basically any time I’ve let my excitement to be done direct me to preemptively press the big red button.
The truth is, editing is a skill. A very important skill. But any skill takes time, so you should make time to learn how to edit your writing properly and efficiently.
The best way to edit, especially when you’re a beginner, is to edit in passes from big changes to small changes. If you want to learn about this in detail, sign up for my email list to receive The Ultimate Self-Editing Checklist. It’s free!
8. Be Authentically You
Every time you sit down to write something, you should be asking: “Why am I the person to be saying this?”
You are the only you, with a unique perspective and set of experiences that no one else has. This is a huge advantage. No matter what you’re trying to say, you have something different to offer. At the very least, no one else will say it quite like you. This is your voice as a writer, creator, and entrepreneur.
I’ve seen so many people who are witty and vibrant in person become dull and bland as soon as their fingers touch the keyboard. Sometimes this happens because they don’t particularly care about the subject matter. But more often than not, it’s because they have the idea that writing is Professional, which means that they have to sound Very Smart and Business-Like.
Throw that preconception out the window if you have it. No one wants to read it as much as you hate writing it.
You can be professional and still have a voice, and it’s possible to add some sparkle without losing your status as an expert. Think of it as faux conversational. It’s not, like, literally conversational, ‘cause it’s, uh, it’s pretty infuriating to read something that sounds like how most people talk, with, um, all the meandering and casual aspects of conversation. However, it should sound like someone is saying it, not writing it. You may have noticed that in this post, I’ve taken some liberties with grammar and word choice here and there in the service of adding some humor or generally sounding like a human being. That doesn’t take away from my credentials as a writer, and hopefully you see how I still follow the important grammar rules and spell-check my work.
Your voice is hugely important to writing well and building trust with your readers. Your readers want to know that there’s a real, live person on the other side of each blog post, video, or podcast. When they can get a sense of who you are, or even get to know you over time, they become loyal supporters who want to hear what you have to say.
9. Give it Time, and Keep Writing
The more you consciously use these skills as you write and edit your work, the more intuitive they become. Give yourself lots of time to write and edit as you start to incorporate some or all of these skills into your routine. This upfront time will pay you back (with interest!) as you get to know your style and start using these skills without even thinking about it.
Most importantly, keep writing. The more you do, the more you learn. The hardest part is getting through the crappy first drafts before you start to see the results you’re looking for and gain confidence in your writing awesomeness.
Keep this post bookmarked or write these 9 skills on a post-it and stick it next to your computer as you write. And if you want some self-editing tips, join my email list to get your free copy of The Ultimate Self-Editing Checklist.
You can do it.