You will not “lose your voice” by correcting spelling errors, cutting repetitive words or sentences, or revising awkward phrases. But if you don’t do those things, you may lose readers.
Once isn’t enough. Twice isn’t enough. Before I press “publish,” I’ll read this twenty times and find something to correct every time.
Readers are lazy and prefer clean, simple writing.
Government employees use big, fancy words and write long, awkward sentences. You don’t want your blog to sound like an EPA manual, do you?
“Never use a long word where a short one will do,” George Orwell.
For newspaper and blog writing, have no more than two or three sentences per paragraph, and then skip a line between paragraphs.
Again, think of your reader. Do you want her to enjoy your writing, or do you want her to be impressed by how smart you sound yet not know what you said?
During revision, I usually cut at least one word from each sentence and one sentence from each paragraph. If it serves no purpose, then it is a weed, sucking life from your garden. Cut it.
Use proper punctuation, grammar, and font.
For the love of humanity, if you write, do it right.
Sentences without punctuation or capitalization are not cool, cute, or revolutionary. They are dumb and lazy.
“In summary,” is where I stop reading. As Zinsser says, “When you’re ready to stop, stop.” Writing, that is.
The key word is “good.” You may read three-hundred books a year and not read good writing. I’m reading a great book on the Korean War, but the author is not a great writer. Local newspapers are filled with bad writing. Blog posts are rarely well-written. Best-selling books may not even be good examples.
What is good writing? Look no further than the authors you knew as a child. E.B. White. Mark Twain. C.S. Lewis. There’s a reason classics are classics.
Read good writing and imitate it. All writers, even the greats, imitate others. Don’t worry about your voice or style. Instead, focus on writing well.
and rambling without cohesion post from me. No sir.
I actually thought of your blog yesterday when I was thinking of bloggers who write “crisp and clean” like Sally.
Seeing that I never have anything important to say, I believe short and to the point (and heavily photo laden) is the way to go!
I thoroughly enjoy your writing advice – keep it coming!
Great tips! Thanks for sharing these.
Thank you, Good Attitude Food Dude. Thanks for stopping by.
This is great advice. It makes a lot of sense!
Thank you! I think my views came from two books–On Writing Well, and the Elements of Style. I’ve read both so many times I’ve lost count.
It’s interesting that there is actually a formula to successful writing. I have to write more and more at my job. The more I write, the more people ask me to write. Which is fine. But I never really thought about it from this perspective!
I’m guilty of some of those, especially the caps lock for obnoxious emphasis and long paragraphs. But I can’t stress #1 enough. It kills me when I reread old posts and find spelling and grammatical errors.
You’re a terrific writer. And regarding the all caps, I’m mainly talking about the people who just always keeps caps lock on, and that’s the only way they type. I work with some people like that. They are usually older than us. (Yes, even older than me.) And no, I’m no lumping you into my age group. 🙂 But yeah, I usually cringe when I go back and read things I wrote years (or months) ago.
”Don’t worry about your voice or style. Instead, focus on writing well.” That’s something I’ll keep in mind, thank you for your tips! I also wrote down those two books!
Ah, great. Well, you are already a very good writer. But those two books are fantastic–classics in the writing world, really.
Thank you! I read Educated a couple of months back. By the end, you’ll be frustrated in more than one way.
Don’t tell my book club, but I’m going to skim it and listen to the interview… LOL!
Rule #7: Break all the above rules, if it seems to work. And throw out any and all copies of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.
Of course, I’m an unpaid blogger, and most of my followers are just trying to sell me something, so what do I know.
I like #7 except for throwing out Strunk and White. That’s a classic! I’m an unpaid blogger too, though so who knows?
Egads. Well then, I won’t cast too many aspersions on your “classic”. I tried to read it once. Found it made for a good emetic and soporific.
Well, yes, it is kind of boring. I had to read it for a college class and hated it back then. Years later I loved it for its advice. But it’s not fireplace reading.
No, but I can think of other uses for it, when it comes to a fireplace.
You seem to think and write like me. I wrote a blog entry today wherein I mentioned reading good writing. I love Zinsser, Lewis, and White (with or without Strunk). I loathe the bad writing in newspapers. And I painfully edit my blog posts; however, too often, that pain goes on even after I’ve hit “publish”.
Sadly, my post post-editing cries out for an edit button in WordPress commenting.
Jolly good writing, Nowhere Tribune!
Thank you! Yep, I have problems with my comments, too.