Everything I know about writing

Really, there's not much to it: Shorter is almost always better. Throw away the big words. Listen to some Nashville country music. Those songwriters do a lot without the mouthful-of-marbles vocabulary. Don't reuse the same words on the same page. Find synonyms, euphemisms and other ways to avoid repetition. Don't accidentally echo a word that has two widely different meanings in the same paragraph. For example, "We milled about the store, looking for milled corn." Watch out for homonyms, too. More periods, fewer commas. Chop up your sentences shorter instead of stringing together too many ideas in one go. If you're stating something that's obviously opinion rather than fact, cross out identifiers like "I think" and "it seems." Save those for when you believe something is factual but haven't confirmed it. People have an 800-word attention span. It's formula, just like 3-minute pop songs. If you're writing 3000 words, make it four separate pieces. Express yourself without resorting to youth-culture catchphrases like the current "not so much." Ditto for dumb shock words like "craptastic." One joke per page. Maybe two if they're original. Honestly, even P.J. O'Rourke and Dave Barry lay it on too thick sometimes. If you're looking for a fight, only pick on people bigger than yourself. Ignore ankle-biters unless they have a good point, in which case give them credit for teaching you something. Did you go to grad school? You know that style they taught you where you write entirely in the passive voice, and you start by telling people what you're going to tell them, then you tell them, then you tell them what you told them? You've been ruined. So sorry. When you think you're done, print out your writing on paper. Read it out loud to someone else. Pay attention to where either of you gets confused. If you can't read a sentence aloud easily, rewrite it. Take your big conclusion at the end. Make it your lead at the start. Rewrite. Find an editor who makes you work. Thanks to Brian Slesinsky for the edit. Link to this entry Posted on 10/28/07; 1:48:30 AM