10 ways to become a better writer and booming in STEEMIT

 In the world of online and email communication, writing powerful copy makes all the difference. 

 How can you quickly improve your writing? What tools are there beyond grammar and spellchecker to make sure you’re doing your best work? Sometimes we need tactical, specific, and immediately useful  tips to make our writing better. Most writing tips, for me, always seem  to feel good – and then I struggle with the actual writing and  re-writing. How do you transform the writing tips of Stephen King,  Stephen Pressfield, Seth Godin, and Ray Bradbury (amazing storytellers,  all) into actionable outcomes? Here are 10 of my favorite strategies that help when you’re  self-editing, scrambling to make ends meet, and holding both a beer and a  coffee in your hands while trying to write-and want to do your best  work. 

1. Start with a story.

Begin your piece with a fable that illustrates your point and shows  the reader what it is that you’re talking about. Develop a scene and a  scenario where people can nod their heads and say, yes, I see, that  happens to me. I can picture myself doing that. Despite how useful facts and lists are, stories are  what resonate. We’re pulled into the grip of a helicopter crash, and  most of us can’t look away when we see bright lights or hear loud  noises. 

 

2. Start with a question.

Much of life, and blog posts, are paradoxes, not answers. Starting  with the answer first can be terrifying (and worse, inaccurate or  incomplete). We revisit the same ideas over and over again not because we’ve  conclusively decided, but because each topic is worth thousands of  conversations. We need the reminders, we meditate on the ideas, and we  each have our own flavor and take on the issue. In a recent New York  Times Opinion piece about the suffering in Syria, the author opens the  essay with a question that haunts human philosophy: “Does the torrent of suffering ever abate – and can one possibly find any point in suffering?” You don’t need to answer the question to write a great story or essay. Begin with a question, and add your thoughts. 

 

3. Play with the use of first, second, and third person narrative.

First person is filled with “I” statements-great when you know the  author, or you have a relationship with the person doing the writing.  Second person uses “you” all the time-and can be a wonderful tool for  creating empathy and describing a scene that you want the reader to  inhabit-but can become bossy quickly with excessive use. Third person  focuses on the scene or the action from an anonymous observer within the  room. Most of the time, we don’t actually care about the writer. Your  reader wants to know exactly how the writing affects him or her-and  whether or not the reading is going to matter to them specifically Right  from the start, you should paint a picture of the person or scene and  show the action happening. While first-person can be a tremendous tool as a writer, many  bloggers (myself included) are often far too liberal in writing our  experiences. Luckily, there’s a quick way to fix this: write the post  you would normally write, and then edit selectively to remove the “I”  from a couple of paragraphs. Take a paragraph that looks like this, for example: 

I was tired and hungry from a long day and the rain was beating  down on my bike helmet. I didn’t want to work anymore-I was completely  exhausted and ready to hit the hay. But I knew how important it was to  continue to get this project out the door-it was my first real project  as an entrepreneur, and delivering it mattered. 

And turn it into this (reducing the use of I statements-but still narrative): 

The rain beat down on my bike helmet. It was a long and tiring  day. Sometimes it feels better to hit the bed instead of continuing to  work-but I wanted to impress my newest client. Getting projects out the  door on time is critical for first-time entrepreneurs. It was important  to deliver, and deliver well. 

 

4. Talk it through.

Start with the communication vehicle you’re most comfortable with.  Most people get stuck writing because they haven’t done it enough. They  haven’t sat at the computer and made writing a habit, and each time they  do eventually get to the screen, they agonize over each word choice and  sentence until they’ve beaten the poor essay to death, 500 words and 2  bottles of wine later, declaring, “I’ll never write again, no, not me!” If you’re stuck on writing, chat with a friend and use voice  recorder, or stomp around your office or hallway and talk things out.  Much of great conversation and thinking is done while moving-why should  we sit and expect the great ideas to pour out of us once we’ve relegated  our bodies to stillness? Start talking, start recording, and go for a  walk. Many a mile I’ve walked with an earphone in my ear and a voice  recorder on, pretending to talk to someone else while I’m actually just  talking to myself. 

 

5. Write the outcome you want first-by beginning with the ending.

Start with the ending, and the desired action. Sometimes the posts I  write are creative, lyrical, poetic, and exploratory-that’s fine. Other  times, I want something, and I want something specific. Perhaps it’s a  donation to charity water, or a sign-up to my latest writing workshop.  Each time, I think carefully and specifically about the person who will  be reading the essay, and the end of the piece, and what action I want  them to take. 

 

6. Write about things you know.

Write about things that seem incredibly obvious to you (and that  you’re perhaps overlooking). Describe how you do things, and how you  sort your day. Pay attention to the questions people ask you at  conferences, in email, and during dinner conversations for clues to what  people want to know. Surprisingly, people are incredibly different and  what you do may be novel to someone else. 

 

7. Be incredibly specific.

Clichés and abstract thinking are painful to read and prevalent  across every type of writing. The solution to clichés is to get  incredibly specific-start detailing the scene and describe who is doing  what, where you are, and what is happening. Examples are more powerful  than anecdotes. For example: It was grueling, and I was exhausted. I’d never worked so hard in my life. Can be turned into something much more specific, with details about who, what, where, when, and why: My arms were quivering and shaking; in retrospect, doing a  26-mile run the day before writing my launch essay was probably not the  best strategy. I could barely keep my fingers above my keyboard. 

 

8. After you’ve written your essay, go back and delete the first and the last paragraph.

After you’ve written your post or essay, go back and delete the first  and last paragraph. The body usually contains the most of the “meat” of  the post, and many writers amble on too long in the introductions and  conclusions. Try deleting it and shortening it to make it sweet and  punchy. 

 

9. Mimic great writers you like.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If you’re stuck, use Evernote  to copy and trace patterns that you like. I like to save out great  essays and drafts from my favorite writers, print them, and then  highlight them to study how people write effectively. Behind the words  that you enjoy the most are patterns and clues to great writing. For example:  

• Email headings: Pay attention to what  you click on in emails-what were the five emails you opened first today?  What did the headlines say? Jot those down. Circle words that felt  great. Were they long or short? What made you want to click? Take one  you like and flip it around to become something that works for your  business, idea, or model.
• Start with a bang. Use powerful ledes. Not sure what a lede is?  (It’s the bullet or grab at the beginning of a story, made clear in the  first paragraph) – skim 5 opening paragraphs of the New York Times with  a highlighter and see what you like about each one. Convert it to your  own style.
• End with a boom. Wrap up the writing  with a punchy statement, a leading question, or a call to action. If  you’ve deleted your first and last paragraphs, perhaps there was one  sticky statement you wanted to keep-perhaps distilling that into one  sentence will do the trick.

 

10. Write less and link more.

Find examples and point to them. It’s perfectly okay to not reinvent  the wheel – it can be equally valuable to curate great content or  showcase your process of discovery if it’s lead you to a great outcome  or conclusion. 

You can read more article here and here to become a better writer