“The Elements of Style – a book by Strunk and White” It’s been written a long time ago and went through a few revisions since and it’s an excellent resource to improve your writing. There is a really small and thin book that teaches you about writing style. Don’t’ distract a reader from your message. Remove all redundant writing especially the one that’s not part of the story. Use minimum text required to tell your message Some redundant words and phrases can be removed. Some repeating words need to be replaced with synonyms. Some long sentences need to be broken down. But even reading my own text I can already spot opportunities for improvement. I even ask my wife to read my writing and tell me which parts lack clarity and need work. No matter how hard you try to write a perfect text, reading it later you notice how it can be improved. Some computer programs have “undistracted writing” mode you can turn on to keep you away from all of the distractions. You may decide to pick up a paper pad and use that instead of writing on a computer. Email, Skype, Facebook posts, popups on your screen, notifications of any kind… They all grab your attention and get you distracted. And it’s easy to get distracted these days. They get distracted and don’t follow their goal of writing. The biggest mistake among writers and especially those who write for sale (copywriters) is that they don’t’ write enough. Because when you’re moving along, you’re creating. It’s not a finished product therefore the important goal is to not stop, but follow a momentum of action (writing). Movement and effortless writing is your goal. Frequently you will get idea after idea in your head and then you stop to correct a word and the idea is gone. Turn off those annoying grammar checkers that underline incorrectly spelled words (you can turn it on later). Not even to correct your typos.ĭon’t ever go back when you’re writing. If you don’t know what to say, just write “Blah Blah Blah” until you think of something to say. You just sit there wondering how to continue. This is where you sit down to write and run out of things to say. You may be having a common problem amongst writers called… writer’s block. He did and received a check of $200,000 when working as a teacher at the beginning of the 70s. His wife was cleaning his office and found the crumpled up balls of paper, smoothened them out and said “That’s good writing, you should try submitting it to the editor”. One time he tried writing something silly for fun but then he didn’t like what he wrote and crumpled up his written sheets of paper and threw them into the wastebasket. It tells a story of how he struggled to sell his writings and how his texts were routinely rejected by publishers. Stephen King’s book “About Writing” is a short one and it tells his humble beginnings. There is a saying among writers that only your third novel will be successful.
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