You Can Make Good Writing Even Better Writing
Treat your writing like a fine sportscar and lovingly detail it before driving off
I was cleaning out filing drawers filled with clippings of my work over the years. I started reading some of them but quickly stopped. Much of my earliest work was, well, awful putting it nicely. Ok, maybe not awful, but the work definitely did not measure up to the caliber of my writing today — and that’s how it should be.
Writing is both art and craft, and like all artists and craftspeople, our skills should improve as we gain experience and expertise. I bet that if you’ve been writing a long time and if you were to read some of your earlier stuff, you would see a marked improvement in your writing and editing skills.
So, what turns good writing into better writing?
1. Aim for precision
“If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.” — William Knowlton Zinsser
Precision refers to our ability to use the right word for what we want to convey. But more than using the right word, it’s the best word, the word that paints a picture or evokes an emotion. Overuse of adjectives and adverbs often reveals a…
