Print publishers paid freelance writers by the word. They needed to fill the space around lucrative ads and draw in readers with entertaining, informative copy. There was a market for bulk, readable copy.

Freelancer writers responded to market forces. They learned to write long. Some padded their prose with waffle. Most didn't feel pressure to write tight copy. A longer sentence bought a cup of coffee; a couple of extra paragraphs could fund a night in the pub.

Online publishing follows a different economic model. Web readers don't hang around. As usability expert Jakob Nielsen says: “If you want many readers, focus on short and scanable content.”

Online publishers want snappy copy over and over to maximise page reads and advertising clicks.

Which means freelance writers have to unlearn bad habits and get back to writing tight copy. For some of us older journalists this is like going back to our roots.

Those of us who learnt our trade in the 1970s grew up in a world where papers and magazines didn't have acres of space to fill. And well-staffed newsrooms meant every available column inch was fought over.

Us older freelance writers are relearning writing skills we first met a generation ago.

Elmore Leonard wrote this as the last of his ten rules of writing.

If it sounds like writing, rewrite it

Leonard is an author. A first-rate author who writes fast-paced novels with great dialogue and plenty of action.

While Leonard is an artist, his advice also applies to journalists and anyone else who writes for a living.

What he means, is make sure you writing doesn't sound like an undergraduate essay or a piece of high school homework.

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RCN
	Albany-based RCN takes unwanted computers and electronic equipment and either recycles the devices or disposes of them in an environmentally sensitive manner. More details.
New Zealand Reseller News
	Former editor and associate publisher of the top independent newspaper for people at the sharp end of the computer business. Visit the Reseller News web site.
Smales Farm Technology Office Park
	The best place to do business on Auckland’s North Shore, Smales Farm is an environmentaly sustainable office park designed for technology and business tenants. More details.
Sydney Morning Herald
	More than a decade’s worth of contributions including writing a weekly small business technology column, higher education, careers and entreprenurial stories.
Australian Financial Review
	Contributed features on a regular basis to the Australian Financial Review, writing covered many aspects of business and technology.
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	Wrote a number of chapters in PC World’s special publication focusing on consumer electronics and home computing.
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	The Australian edition of Windows XP magazine has a distinctive style. Bill Bennett wrote a number of “how to” stories for relatively inexperienced computer users.
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	Feature writing for Australia’s leading personal computer magazine.

You can read some of my stories in my clippings file.

My name  Bill Bennett. I'm a freelance writer.

I've worked as a journalist, a writer, as an editor and a publisher. Now I'm available to help you get your message to your audience.

I can improve your communications and;

* Raise your company’s profile,
* Increase sales,
* Project a better image,
* Increase your influence and
* Help you steal a march on your rivals.

Free consultation

For a free, no-obligation consultation call me, Bill Bennett on +64 9 418 2445 or email bill@billbennett.co.nz.

I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand, but I have freelance writing clients in Australia and internationally.

What can a freelance writer do for you?

I know how to grab people’s attention and communicate messages. You can apply my writing skills to your:

* Websites — writing snappy copy that quickly turns visitors into customers and clicks
* Newsletters — driving traffic to your web site
* Advertising — using words to sell
* Brochures — developing tempting offers
* Case studies — showing customers how it is done
* Press releases — getting the word out to a wider audience
* Presentations — keeping audiences engaged and avoiding ‘death by Powerpoint’
* Reports — making convincing arguments

find out more:

There's a short biography, a portfolio and examples of my writing. I've also written a page of writing tips.

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Because it is more direct and easier to understand, the active voice is preferable to the passive voice.

With the active voice a subject (noun) acts (verb) on an object (noun). In the passive voice the object is acted on by the subject.

For example:

Active: Andy kicked the ball

Passive: The ball was kicked by Andy.

The active voice makes for tighter writing and easier reading. It is more personal and less formal.

You’ll notice in the example the passive version uses six words while the active phrase required only four and has simpler grammar. It’s both economical and clear.

Readers find active voice phrases easier to understand as they involve fewer stages – or as someone once said “fewer mental hoops to jump through”. This becomes important in more complex sentences and longer pieces of text.

The active voice also reads as if the writer is confident about the facts. In contrast, phrases and sentences written in the passive voice seem tentative or uncertain. You’ll  find bureaucrats and corporate managers hiding behind the passive voice’s ambiguities.

For example, in the phrase; “the claims have been analysed”, it’s not clear who did the analysis. On the other hand; “We analysed the claims” is pretty clear.

Things get worse when the writer resorts to using the word ‘it’ instead of ‘I’ or ‘we’:

In the sentence “It was decided no claims would be payable” the author is deliberately hiding behind the ‘it’ implying that authority comes from on high an not identifying the person who did the deciding.

There are times when you need to use the passive voice. We’ll look at them in another post.

Good writing is direct, clear and precise. It is also unambiguous. As a writer your goal is to send your thoughts swiftly and accurately to the reader.

The best way to do this is by making sure there are as few barriers as possible between your message and your audience.

Forget what you learnt in school. It may be OK  to impress teachers and exam markers with your grasp of complex language and obscure long words: in the real world simple, straightforward language works best. This applies to all types of writing.

Remember, not all your readers are native English speakers. And not all them are highly educated. Even those who are, will not be impressed by your fancy words and cleverness.

• If you have something worth saying (or writing) always choose short words over long ones. Words with Anglo-Saxon roots are easier to understand than ones from a Latin origin. They are also easier to spell.
• Use the smallest number of words needed. Where possible keep sentences and paragraphs short. A paragraph should contain a single idea.
• Avoid jargon and foreign words.
• Try to write in the everyday speech of ordinary people, but don’t overdo the chattiness and avoid slang.
• Most of the time the active voice is better than the passive voice.
• Learn how to use punctuation.

Our schools taught us never to start sentences with "And".

And yet newspaper journalists do it all the time. It is one of the first writing rules professional writers learn to break.

There's nothing wrong with using "And" to begin a sentence or a paragraph.

It is a great way to smooth the flow of a series of short sentences that would otherwise seem too staccato for comfortable reading.

However, it works best if you only break this rule in moderation. Overusing "And" at the start of sentences quickly makes your text boring.

As Keith Waterhouse points out in the excellent Daily Mirror Style, if you write too many sentences starting with the word, your prose will read like the New English Bible.

I consciously limit my use of sentences beginning with "And". As a rule of thumb I aim for only one "And" sentence start in a short piece. For longer stories, you can get away with using it a few times. But control any urge to sprinkle sentences starting with "And" through your copy.

Other conjunctions

The school rule didn't just apply to "And", starting sentences with other conjunctions was equally forbidden. As an aside, conjunctions are 'joining' words used to string phrases together – usually, but not always, to build more complex sentences.

There are plenty of alternative conjunctions to call on at the start of your sentences:

• "But" is a great way to start a sentence that disagrees with the previous one.
• "Yet" is a less-frequently used alternative.
• "Or" is a great word for helping text flow.
• Some editors don't like sentences to start with "However". I would regard that as another rule worth breaking.
• "Although" is a possibility. In practice it is better to shorten the word to "Though" at the start of a sentence.

More ideas

Michelle Pierce covered this subject nicely in Three Grammar Rules You Can (And Should) Break for Copyblogger.