Whether you’re writing a book, an article, or even just an email to your aunt, proper writing skills are always important. A lot of people have trouble with it because they never realize how much there actually is to learn about the subject. Luckily, it only takes following a few simple steps to improve your writing skills and become more confident in your communication abilities. Here are 8 tips to immediately improve your writing skills. Here are 8 tips that will make your writing more clear and concise.
Before Writing:
1) Understand your audience and Know how they think. Understanding your audience will help you write content that is consumable and helpful to the reader.
2) Set goals.
The first step is setting goals for yourself. What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to write a blog post about a certain topic? Do you want feedback on your writing? Do it.
3) Imitate writers you admire.
Everyone has their own style of writing, but there are some tricks that can help you improve your skills such as reading other people’s work and picking up techniques from them. It doesn’t matter if the style is different from your own, as long as there are things you can learn from it.
4) Accept constructive criticism.
The third step is not being afraid of criticism or looking at the grammar mistakes in your text. Remember that everyone makes mistakes, so don’t be too hard on yourself when you notice something wrong with what you’ve written—just fix it and move on!
5) Take a class or read a book on how to write better. There are tons of resources out there, so try reading some of the reviews for popular books before buying one if money is tight or deciding between two books that both look like they could be helpful for where you’re at in life right now.
6) Prepare materials.
Most writers utilize grammarly, Twords, Evernote, Thesaurus and Google docs among others.
Recommended Writing tools for writers.
When Writing:
1) Use a spell-checker – Misspellings can distract the reader and make it difficult for them to understand what you’re trying to say.
2) Keep your sentences short and simple. This way the reader doesn’t get bored or distracted by too many thoughts or ideas at once.
3) Find a balance between showing and telling what’s happening in the story/article. If you’re explaining something, show it through dialogue or action instead of just saying it outright. Telling can be informative, but it often isn’t as interesting as seeing it happen.
4) Know when to use punctuation: Periods go inside quotation marks () if they apply to only one sentence in a paragraph; periods go outside quotation marks if they apply to multiple sentences. Commas go inside quotation marks when used for direct quotes (they usually don’t work well for indirect quotes).
5) Punctuate lists correctly: Use semicolons to separate items within a list; put commas after introductory words such as for example or such as.
6) Choose descriptive verbs: Instead of I walked, try I strode, which is more active and makes the scene come alive with action and sound.
6) Use white space – White space is the blank area between lines, paragraphs, and other text on a page. It can be as much as double-spaced lines or it can be just a few spaces. The more you use it, the better the readability of your document will be. This is because white space allows readers’ eyes to move around more easily and prevents them from feeling overwhelmed with information all at once. Plus, it increases readability by drawing attention to individual words or phrases rather than entire sentences or paragraphs of text at once so that readers can focus on what’s important in each paragraph and make connections between them.
After Writing:
1) Read, Read, Read:
Reading is the number one way to improve your writing skills because it forces you to analyze how other writers structure sentences and paragraphs. Plus, reading other people’s work makes you smarter. The more you read the easier it will be for you to find your own style. If you want an easy way to start reading more often, sign up for a monthly book club or borrow books from the library and read them on your lunch break at work!
2. Revise your draft until it is a finished product and read it out loud again to see if anything needs changing.
The first draft is never your best draft. The more time you take, the better the result will be. If a sentence doesn’t sound right, try rewriting it until it does.3. Get feedback on your work from friends, family, and colleagues so that you can incorporate their thoughts into the final draft of your writing project. It’s important that you hear what people think of your writing and get their honest opinion. Feedback can be invaluable in improving your writing style, but it can also help you stay motivated. Hearing what people think of your work can either motivate you to keep going or make you want to give up altogether, so choose wisely who you share with! Try asking a few friends who are skilled writers themselves for feedback on your latest piece.
4. Use simple words for complex concepts and complex words for more complicated concepts when you are writing about them as this will help people understand what you are trying to say more easily.
5. Know when enough is enough in regards to sentence length – not all sentences need to be 10 lines long just because they can be!
6) Read what you wrote out loud. It’s difficult to catch mistakes when you’re reading silently.
7) Edit, edit, edit!
Editing your work is the best way to improve it. If you’re not sure where to start, read over your writing out loud and make corrections as you go along. When you’re finished reading, go back and edit again. It may seem like a lot of work at first, but in the end it will be worth it because your writing will be smoother, more cohesive and more engaging for the reader.
Bonus Tip
- Keep it simple and concise.
Readers don’t want to feel like they’re taking a test while they read your blog post or story; they want to understand the message and have their curiosity satisfied as quickly as possible. Keep sentences short, use active verbs, and remove extra words that don’t add value or meaning to your writing.