Write better in four steps

Want to be taken seriously? Improve your writing skills – and social media presence – in four manageable steps.

Believe it or not, my clients’ expertise doesn’t end at fiction. Many of the writers I work with are professionals who need help with work-specific content for books, blogs and business material. They understand their writing is sub-par, yet they don’t know how to fix it. The inevitable – embarrassing – moment follows.

Mistakes in their posts.

On a much larger scale than a resume, your writing serves as an advertisement for your business. Your goal is to turn readers into raving fans. So how can you, a person without an English or marketing degree, get potential supporters to come back each time you publish?

Improve your writing.

Read

If you’re interested in writing better, read more. If you’re writing in a specific content area or genre, find out who does it best and read their work. If you don’t have time for books, wrap your brain around as many articles and blog posts as you can. Emails from supervisors and mentors, as well as people who focus on good content, count too.

Limited time is not an excuse when you’re trying to improve yourself. You can read articles at lunch or while you’re drinking your morning coffee. You can come up with a million reasons you don’t have time and I’ll continue telling you the same thing.

Tweet

If you argue with yourself about having the time to read, what makes you think your audience isn’t having the same conversation? If you respect your audience’s time as much as your own, you won’t write wordy content.

Twitter’s popularity is proof people want the meat of the message immediately. They don’t want to dig around and search. They want to know what they’re getting into. That’s not to say you can’t write complex sentences. But if you’re writing additional clauses, descriptions or adverbs, well…you’ll be more successful if you don’t.

Practicing on Twitter helps you become more concise. You can throw your pity-party and argue this isn’t true or that it’s unfair. But while you’re stomping, you’re losing readership.

Edit

Dump the words into your first draft and sift through them during revision. This helps with brevity. And typos. Editing is necessary, even for experienced writers. Duh. Why else would people hire me?

If writing is a reflection of thinking, you want people to see you as intelligent, straightforward and convincing.

Repeat

Practice is key. The more you read, write and edit, the better you’ll become. One round of practice doesn’t make you an expert, so keep at it. Every day. I know I’ve mentioned Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule before, but it’s important enough to repeat. Not only will writing more help you get better, but you’ll build your fan base by publishing content on your site and social media.

Using these four steps helps build your audience and improve your writing at the same time. WIN.

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On Thursday (July 24, 2014) at 7 p.m. EST, I’ll be talking about writer’s block, getting the words out, giving fear the finger and a metric ton of other writerly things.

Signup here –> https://rebeccatdickson.com/webinar <– for details and to submit your questions. The doors close after the first 100 people. (I don’t make these rules. The software company does.) So please signup early to make sure you’re in.

I’m excited to finally talk to all of you LIVE.

P.P.S. Can’t make it live? Signup and we’ll send you the recording. 🙂

Adverbs are sucking your prose dry :: Confessions of a Dirty Blonde

The girl I used to teach next to, back in the day, had a sign in her classroom that read: “Said is dead.” A philosophy I live by. But the poster comes to mind now because was swarming with adverbs and verbs she suggested students use to replace “said” and make shit shine.

WRONG.

I’m not trying to be a hater, but I am. If you’re using adverbs in your writing, it’s because you’re scared. Or you’re lazy. Sorry, dudes. Need a reason to avoid adverbs? I’ll give you three.

  1. They’re redundant.

Redundant adverbs are the easiest to cut and, coincidentally, wide-spread in all writing genres. The point of an adverb is to modify the verb or noun, to detail it further, yet these nasty barnacles latch onto a part of speech and repeat whatever has already been said. Copy cats. And, in terms of clean writing, we’re talking about unnecessary use of language. Let’s chop it like it’s hot. (It’s example time).

She frowned unhappily.

Because I had no idea people who frowned were unhappy, did you? I’m being sass-squared, but do you see what I’m saying? She frowned works fine on its own. Here’s another.

She spied secretively.

Most spies are secretive. Using spied as a verb implies as much without the addition. The easy solution is to leave out the adverb. It’s not modifying in either of these cases, only repeating what you’ve already said. Save your words for where they’re useful.

  1. They don’t add intensity.

Not only was “Truly, madly, deeply” a terrible 90s hit, the song title is also the perfect example of three adverbs intended as intensifiers. He loved her truly. She fought madly. He grabbed her thin neck and pulled her close, kissing her deeply and without abandon. You could go back to rule one on some of these, but the real question you should ask yourself is: Are you adding an adverb to avoid failing at description? Is it an easy out?

Some others to avoid: extremely, obviously, definitely, greatly, very and completely.

  1. Said isn’t dead.

This is one of Becky’s favorites. As an editor, especially working for Beck, modifying ‘said’ in dialogue breaks my eyes. Why?

Exchanges should focus on the substance, not on how it was said. After all, the easiest way to avoid being told you’re telling a story and not showing it is by paying attention to everyword you use. Instead of adding additional ones for fear you didn’t hit the mark already. If the dialogue becomes less important than how it is being said, it’s probably useless to the story.

Example:

“I told you you’d spoil your dinner if you ate that an hour ago, brat,” his mother said angrily.

Angrily is unnecessary in the context of the dialogue and distracts from the interaction. This one is debated as often as elephants and donkeys. There are other writers who disagree and argue about teaching creativity and refusing to limit dialogue to one exit clause. Still, I come back to simplicity.

If the character needs to say something, let them say it and leave well enough alone.

What adverbs do you catch yourself using most often and why? Tell us in the comments.

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Got writing questions for Capo? Email capo@rebeccatdickson.com. Confessions of a Dirty Blonde goes out every Thursday.