writing advice
Good clear writing is readily understandable and unambiguous.
Great writers make sure there are as few barriers as possible between their message and their audience. They help ideas flow smoothly.
I don’t claim I'm a great writer, but I’ve made a decent living for the last 30 years from being a competent journalist.
Along the way I’ve learnt a thing or two. Most of my writing is in what we in the trade call newspaper style.
Newspapers and magazines or publishing companies usually have their own style books which lay out a set of rules – mainly for the sake of consistency. They differ from paper to paper, town to town and country to country, yet many of the best ideas are common to most, if not all, style books.
I've written a series of tips to help you become a better writer.
You don’t have to follow them all. You don’t have to agree with any of them. But reading them will help you think about your writing and that will improve matters.
How to write like an old-time journalist. You can learn a lot about writing from old-school newspaper journalism.
Said will do. Never use a verb other than “said” when reporting speech.
Forget company history. Focus on the important stuff.
First, second, third. How to handle lists.
Writing tips: Avoid and/or and slashes. Slashes aren't just an ugly distraction, they also make your meaning unclear.
Prepositions at the end of sentences. Most of the grammar you learnt at school is helpful. The rule about prepositions at the end of sentences isn't.
Apostrophe errors undermine your credibility
Snappy writing works best online
Capital letters. Use capital letters for proper nouns. Avoid them for common nouns.
Better writing: Go easy on the adjectives
Better writing: Keep it simple
Better writing: The inverted pyramid
The active voice: Better writing
In defence of clear, crisp communications
Ten tips to make sure your press release fails
Minimise jargon Jargon doesn’t make you look smarter. It tells your readers you’re a pompous wind-bag.
To be or not to be If you want to make your writing clearer and more interesting, use be verbs sparingly.
Headline writing for online copy. The first in a series showing how you can write great headlines to turn browsers into readers.
If you need a freelance writer to help communicate your message, please contact me.
Good thoughts Bill. One comment though: outside of the newspaper and journalism world, I’ve found some of the most engrossing writing is actually more obtuse.
Penny Arcade springs to mind. Obviously most readers share a common understanding, but Jerry Holkins (aka Tycho) is clearly a superb scribe, with a vocabulary to rival Stephen Fry – albeit in an entirely different register. The reason I read his stuff is because it’s not compliant with the AP stylebook.
Ben
22 Apr 10 at 9:02 am
@Ben – A fair point. My style posts don’t apply to fiction or even non-fiction books. They are for journalists, but also for online writers, company sites, blogs, etc.
Bill Bennett
22 Apr 10 at 12:20 pm