Five Tips for Solid Writing
Yes, I’m an editor, and I’ll admit it. I get a twisted sense of satisfaction in rooting out your mistakes and marking up your precious manuscript with the ink of my blood-red pen. But only if you ask me to — and only in the kindest way. It’s my job to help you sharpen your message, to guide you in telling your story or making a point that’ll stick. And while I do believe in style guides, proper spelling, and decent grammar, I’m fine with breaking rules where it counts. In fact, I broke a rule with the use of “blood-red” rather than the Merriam-Webster suggestion of “bloodred.” What can I say? I prefer the hyphen sometimes.
I’m here to give you some unsolicited advice about better writing. Let’s dig in.
Write in Your Own Voice
Novice writers often think they need to sound smart, so they use words and phrases they’d never utter in casual conversation. They stretch out sentences to the point where a reader loses track of the meaning, or they water down the language with generalizations and too much passive voice (more on that in the next section). But the best thing you can do is write like you talk. Even if you turn to a thesaurus for ideas, be sure to choose words you could imagine using in real life.
There are exceptions, of course. If you’re writing fiction, you may wish to take on the persona of a narrator who doesn’t talk like you. In high school, for instance, when a teacher asked us to rewrite a fairytale in the style of a famous author, I chose Edgar Allan Poe and “The Three Little Pigs.” As you might imagine, I needed a thesaurus for that.
Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, you might construct dialogue in which characters (or real people) use a specific dialect or words you’d never dream of saying. In general, though, if you can’t read your written words aloud and imagine yourself saying them in conversation, you may want to revise.
Avoid Unnecessary Passive Voice
Sometimes passive voice is unavoidable (and acceptable), but it’s best to minimize it. Any time you use passive voice, ask yourself if you could revise to use active voice instead. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, you’re not alone. Passive voice is often misunderstood. I italicized that last sentence on purpose — because it’s in passive voice.
Passive voice: Passive voice is often misunderstood.
Active voice: People often misunderstand passive voice.
Regarding the two sentences above, I hope to highlight two things. First, I’ve offered basic examples of passive and active voice. Second, in the case above, it wouldn’t be a terrible thing if you used the passive-voice version. Here are a few more examples, where active voice might be the clearer choice.
Passive voice: The deck was built by Jim and my dad.
Active voice: Jim and my dad built the deck.
Passive voice: This article was written in August.
Active voice: I wrote this article in August.
For a more detailed discussion on passive voice, you can check out what Purdue has to say here. But until you gain a better understanding of it, look to the experts. Hire a great editor.
Use Adverbs Sparingly
A college writing professor once told me that to improve my writing, I should avoid all adverbs. It sounded harsh at the time, but the advice hasn’t steered me wrong. What I’m referring to most here are words like actually, really, very, truly, extremely, or definitely.
As Laura Mondragón says here, “Adverbs are toxic because they weaken your writing.” She goes on to say that “if you need an adverb to describe the action, it often means the verb is weak.” Mondragón also offers some great examples of strong verbs that can bear the weight of both a verb and an adverb, rendering the adverb unnecessary.
There are exceptions here as well. If you use adverbs when you speak, for example, stick to my first suggestion, and write in your own voice. English actor and comedian John Cleese wrote a book called Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide, and it’s riddled with adverbs, but I could hear him saying all of it because that’s the way he speaks. Still, he didn’t overuse the common offenders. So even if you don’t avoid adverbs in general, at least run a search to see how many times you use the buggers I mentioned above, and consider cutting some.
Break the Right Rules, and Break Them on Purpose
As we’ve established, it’s fine to break rules in writing. But my rule about breaking rules is that it should be clear that you’re breaking them on purpose. If you choose to employ sentence fragments, for example, you should do it more than once, and you should only do it if your writing is conversational. In more formal writing (research papers, academic works, scientific stuff, etc.), it might be best to avoid fragments.
As for punctuation rules, be careful. A pet peeve of mine is when modern writers ignore the correct use of commas and semicolons. Different style guides have contrasting opinions about where and how often to use commas, and that’s a story for another time. What I’m referring to here is a punctuation mistake called a comma splice, in which the writer joins two independent clauses with a comma, like this:
I like it when it’s raining outside, it makes me feel comfy and cozy in my warm house.
The two parts of that sentence could be complete sentences on their own, so we should either write them as two sentences, with periods at the end of each one, or we should separate them with a semicolon.
But be careful with semicolons too. A lot of people don’t know the correct way to use them, and if you’re unsure, avoid them altogether. If you insist on using them, take the time to get it right. Or hire a great editor.
Hire a Compatible Editor
Great writing is subjective. You might’ve read this piece and cringed every time I started a sentence with “and” or “but.” You might think I use way too many commas or that most of my sentences are too short. You might even think comma splices, passive voice, and excessive adverbs are fine and dandy. You may disagree with everything I’ve written here, and that’s OK. All it means is that when you hire an editor, you may wish to hire someone other than me, someone whose writing and editing style aligns better with your own.
In choosing an editor, you’ll want to seek out not only a compatible style but also the right qualifications. If you’re writing a dissertation or an academic journal article, find someone who’s worked on those (not me). If you know you want your editor to consult the AP Stylebook rather than the Chicago Manual of Style, mention that up front and be sure they’re proficient at it. Ask your potential editor to do a short sample edit to demonstrate their approach — they might do the sample for free. In the end, it’s like dating. No matter how lovely you both may be, it’s not always a great match, and that’s fine.
The bottom line is that even if you take the time to master all the “rules” of writing and learn which rules to break, you should hire an editor — or at least a proofreader. Even if you’re a phenomenal writer, it’s easy to overlook your own mistakes and inconsistencies, so it’s crucial to get an extra set of eyes on your work, to get a fresh perspective. Check out Media Alchemy Guild for a list of sharp, seasoned editors and proofreaders. Or hire me, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Tara Taylor is a freelance editor and proofreader. She writes personal stories, and she’s working on a book about lying. On the weekends, people pay her to sing. Her husband and her two cats adore her.
