How do you become a better writer?

[built]

I want to improve my writing so I can produce better quality content for my business.

Not too sure where to begin though.

Is it tons of practice? Or do you have any techniques that have personally helped you?

 

[Ryuzaki]

I think a large part of writing well is reading. And what I mean is reading books from writers who aren't writing for the average reader.

So no business books, young adult fiction, etc. You need to be encountering vocabulary that you don't know, complex sentence structures, grammar and syntax you're unfamiliar with, etc.

What ends up happening is that you learn to think more clearly and complexly, because you have access to words with tighter and more specific definitions and connotations. You start thinking in terms of thesis statements per paragraph, and then logical support for that statement until you arrive at the conclusion thought that sews it together.

This can mean reading prose poetry, archaic old english, fun fiction from high-brow authors (Lovecraft & Arthur C. Clarke style, not Stephen King & Dean Koontz, for example), and even reading scientific papers and journals.

You'll absorb so much, and then you'll begin to emulate it because it's becoming a part of you. It alters the way you think, which is what pours out onto the paper or screen.

Then, when you want to write simple and quick content for the web for people who aren't as literate or can't spend a lot of time, you find that, because your mind is sharper and your artillery is stronger, you have a better handle on the simple things. You'll be far more concise and powerful in your language, which is the key to entertainment, education, and conversions.

It's kind of like gearing up to run a competitive 5k. You need to be running 10k a day, stretching yourself past the expectation and norm, so you can really conquer the 5k in terms of endurance and speed.

 

[bernard]

What Ryuzaki said so excellently.

Might I opine, stay away from pseudo-academia, public sector newspeak and just as importantly: big business bs bingo.

 

[Frank]

Same way you get to Carnegie Hall.

What @Ryuzaki said, but also take some time to define what good writing is for whatever you're trying to do. Find places putting out content that match your criteria and study them too.

 

[Blackice]

As discussed here one can go the self-help route which ultimately takes more time. Have you found any courses with regular assignments that provide personal feedback? I think that method would have a greater effect.

I am in a similar position as you. I consider my writing above average but when it comes to legal writing I am not as well polished. So yes, I could read say the Economist and other publications that favor the legal style. The issue is the time involved with self discovery rather then receiving personal help.

In my situation, I am considering a hybrid approach. First, use the best instructional books I can find on legal writing. Then go through with the writing assignments. Once I have completed those two task, I plan to hire an experienced Paralegal to review my assignments.

So if you wanted to improve upon business writing. Include the suggestions in this thread because those are certainly helpful. But also consider a DIY course where you can implement a feedback system. If one is serious I think that approach or attending seminars with follow up support is the most effective.

 

[janus]

Same way you get to Carnegie Hall.

OP isn't trying to get to Carnegie Hall, he's trying to communicate with business people.

Should Kurt Cobain have attended Julliard so he'd have been more "powerful" when dumbing it down for the masses? The power in Stephen King's works is that they are written in the language of the reader, and if you've read his work "On Writing" (which you should), he didn't teach himself how to write in a hyper-complex format just so he could "have the power" to dumb shit down.

Music schools are full of technically-profound virtuosos that go on to make $462 in their lifetime off self-produced CDs. They are light-years better than Beiber, but they are beyond the masses.

So, what are you saying, OP? Do you want to write more popularly, or do you want to write better?

They are two different things. And reading Tolstoy's War and Peace won't help you with one of them.

 

[Andrewkar]

Good book

 

[Tao]

It reminds me of a quote (I think from Stephen King) that to become a better writer, you need to become a better reader!

I also think it is a bit like trying to become a better guitar player/musician, you need to listen to other music to inspire you.

 

[eliquid]

I think there needs to be a definition to "I want to write better".

What's "better" anyways? Going from 2nd grade english to 3rd grade, or going from 2nd published book with no sales in nonfiction.... to best seller self help book on Amazon? There is a difference.

Also, what makes you think you suck right now?

• Is it spelling and grammar?
• Is it getting your point across
• Is it tone and cadence?
• Is it you understand your writing, but your wife or grandma can not?
• Do you struggle to convey value so your writing doesn't sound like filler and fluff?
• Do you just get writers block and stop writing 1/3 of the way in and then say "screw it all" and stop entirely?

Something makes you think you suck. Is it all the above or just some?

It's going to be like marketing. Find out what the problem is and tackle it one by one.

1. In general, you do need to read more. for all the reasons @Ryuzaki pointed out.
   
   
2. You need to write daily. Reading without writing is worthless as you will forget what you learned in reading other people's style. You will need to write daily at length and get the practice in
   
   
3. While you are reading, highlight interesting ways the author used grammar and examples that hit home with you in their writing. Many of my books have highlighter and pen notes in them... not so much for me to remember the info taught to me ( which I do mark it for sometimes ) but for me to reference back because I loved the way they wrote the sentence or the imagery it gave me while reading it... I mark it so I can come back later and copy their style in my own writing sometimes. If you mostly read online, use Evernote for this.
   
   
4. If you think you have technical issues with your writing:
   
   
   1. Get Grammarly or some other helpful spelling and grammar tool. I used several at once for my writing.
      
      
   2. Template out your writing to ensure you are always injecting value as needed
      
      
   3. Don't proof or edit same day you write. Write it out and then stop. Revisit later ( like a day later ) and edit. Stop again and then let a day pass and edit again. Trying to do too much all in the same day generally means you will skip errors and mistakes as your brain is trying to process the intake. Give writing and editing time away from each other. Do more edits later on too as time passes.
      
      
   4. Always be asking yourself, "Can I make this simpler for my reader?" and "Do I really need this word or sentence? Does it add value in any way to the experience?". I've cut 4,000 word posts into 2,200 with this method and made the whole experience much better for the reader in doing so. Less is more, but you also need to make it simple for the reader to understand in the same process. If in doubt, cut it out.
      
      
5. Focus on writing to just one person. Don't worry about the audience or crowd as a whole. Focus on 1 person in the crowd. Give that person a name and pretend you are writing to just him. Depending on the nature of the the writing, pretend you are writing to your Uncle or cousin about your topic. This will help you in focusing in and completing the project so you don't get lost and inject filler/fluff.

This is somewhat good timing for you possibly. I'm about to release a bonus guide to SERPWoo paid users about content creation that has been in the works for several weeks already.

I'm sending out an evaluation of it on Tuesday to all paid members. Might be something you want to look into if you are a paid member of the WooNation.

I've already sent out a prior bonus guide ( last week ) about landing 4x more clients to our paid members with excellent success. This should be even better.

.

 

[Flow]

Practice, practice, practice. It sounds obvious, but possibly the best way to get better at anything is to do it over, and over, and over until you get so bored you fall asleep. You've heard of the 10,000 hours rule, right?

Got writers block? Feel like you just "can't" write? Try freewriting. That means setting a timer and writing non-stop until the time is up. This will also help you get into "the zone", or flow state, which has huge benefits. An easy way to do this is using something like The Most Dangerous Writing App.

Copy others' writing word by word. Many copywriters advocate doing this by hand with the best examples you can find. Doing this every day will ingrain the styles and structures that you're copying out. After a while, you'll start to realise what makes the writing so great. You'll start to incorporate strong writing habits into your own style.

Analyse your writing as well as your idols'. What exactly is it that makes their writing better than yours? The choice of words? Their individual style? Their captivating introductions? Work out why you admire the writers you look up to.

Learn to edit. Editing is a huge part of writing well. Many writers just do a huge brain dump and then rearrange what they've written until it reads the way they want it to. There are even tools you can use like The Hemingway App to tell you exactly which parts you need to improve.

 

[Coney]

As others have already mentioned, reading a lot. I also use vocabulary dot com. I find that learning new words is crucial.

Funny enough, I also find that learning a large variety of idioms makes for some interesting writing. I love idioms and I love incorporating them into my writing.

 

[anwar001]

Practice is crucial but you also need to learn from a master if you wish to see quick improvement. Get a writing mentor or at least someone who is a good writer to review what you write. It shouldn't be difficult these days with so many resources available online. Just Google something like 'share your writing' or 'online writing communities' etc and you should be able to find some good writing communities which have good quality writers who might be able to help you out. Be willing to even pay one or two people to work with you on regular basis.

 

[bernard]

An added benefit of having to write for clients is you get free editor feedback in the form of criticism. I have really learned a lot from that.

 

[built]

I still struggle with this, but I’m starting to get over it.

Lately I’ve realized my problem isn’t my skill as a writer but I have this fear that my writing isn’t better than say my competitions. Ive also realized that in reality the only way I can be different is to share my own experiences and not rewrite other people’s content

 

[Future State]

I have an IRL friend who is scared to even put one word on paper or digital document because someone might not like it.

I reminded him that there are people who are guaranteed to not like it. It might be the best thing on the planet and they won't like it just to be contrary, and they'll be loud about it because that's how they get attention.

Who cares? You aren't there to make the people who won't like it happy. You're there to make the people who do like it happy. And there will be more of those than the dickheads.

@built, I've read a ton of your content on this forum. You're writing is fine. It's actually very clear and concise. You don't waste a lot of words. It cuts straight to the core and feels genuine. You have nothing to worry about.

 

[anwar001]

An excellent technique I had read of improving your writing style is to copy the legends, those writers whom you admire very much. Write by hand their books from cover to cover. You may even repeat it many times over for a single book. Doing so can make you subconsciously improve your writing skills. I read about this technique from an expert copywriter who said his coach/mentor made him do this. The coach made him write by hand at least a dozen books by legendary copywriters of the past.

 

[turbin3]

A lot of great points have already been covered, so I won't rehash those. What I will say is, the single thing that helped me improve my writing the most was readability testing.

I mean, I've done it off and on for years, but for the longest time I never put any concentrated effort into doing it consistently. Awhile back, I started making an effort to do so, as I was building content campaigns for new sites. I ended up getting into the nitty gritty with it. Stuff like matching all aspects of scores (length, various readability scores, gender, etc.) with competitors in a given SERP, just to see what it would do.

When I took a step back, I noticed my writing looked quite a bit better too! Stuff like sentence length, number of complex words (usually over 2-3 syllables), etc. can seriously make a difference. It also adds a degree of gamification to your content writing, which is always fun. "Gotta get that high score bro!"

Unfortunately, much of my writing here doesn't quite reflect this. By the time I get home and done with my own things for the day, when I post on BuSo I fall in to "memory dump" mode. Sometimes that comes in the form of terrible readability, with horribly long and overly-complex sentences. Oh well. LOL

 

[bernard]

Yes, readability is definitely key. Cliches and standard phrases must be cut without mercy too. Nothing says substandard writing like fluffy cliche writing.

 

[ironlemon183]

Grammarly has helped me. Not expecting it to make me a Stephen King but it's nice to see common errors I make in grammar and spelling it.

But, it would be interesting what pure writers would think of its suggested changes because perhaps they are wrong in the end as well haha.