How to be a good writer pt. 4

Watch out for adjectives and adverbs.

Using too many adjectives and adverbs in your writing can result in what’s sometimes known as ‘purple prose’. You’ll have seen it at some time or another no doubt. It’s when the writing is lavished with unnecessary and flowery descriptions making the work difficult to read and hard to follow.

In general, you can avoid this effect by being careful about how you use adjectives and adverbs. An exercise that’s commonly used to illustrate this point involves going back through a piece of work and removing all of the adjectives and adverbs to see if the writing becomes more direct and punchier or whether it loses  something.

In general, the outcome is that the writing becomes much more direct and more easily understood. 

The ultimate aim is not to completely avoid adjectives and adverbs but to use them sparingly and where they add most value to the writing.

Check your spelling, punctuation and grammar.

As part of your editing and proofreading process, it is imperative that spelling, punctuation and grammar is checked and corrected. Few things will undermine the credibility of a writer more quickly than an inability to get the basics right. 

Read your work out loud.

A good method to explore while proofreading is reading your work out loud to yourself. This may seem pointless to those who have never done it and felt the effect. It may even make you feel a little self-conscious,

but for many writers it is a proven technique that helps them approach what they’ve written from the reader’s perspective. Make sure you’re on your own and in a place where you can be sure you won’t be overheard.

This will help fight your feeling of self-consciousness. Give it a try. It’s really not as silly as it sounds.

Use the right voice.

One of the most over-used pieces of advice given to writers is to use the active voice instead of the passive voice. Although the advice may be over-used, it doesn’t make it any less true. The active voice is much

more direct and more word-efficient, allowing your text to flow and bringing the reader along with less effort and significantly more pace. 

If you’re not sure what is meant by active voice, take a look at Freewritingadvice.com’s language tips page for a fuller description. 

Use a title that will draw readers in.

In terms of getting people to read your work, choosing the right title can be one of the most important decisions you make. 

The title is the first ‘hook’ a reader will see and may be the deciding factor around reading or not.

Avoid annoying repetition. 

 Repetition of words can be annoying and frustrating especially in creative writing. 

To avoid using the same words over and over, look for other words that will convey the meaning you’re after but with subtle differences. This not only avoids repetition but can bring additional depth to your writing. A thesaurus is a good tool to help with this, so get one and use it mercilessly. 

A thesaurus is a good tool to help with this, so get one and use it mercilessly.

In web copywriting or content writing, it’s a different story. The need to ensure adequate use of keywords and key phrases means that repetition is an all too common ailment of website pages. Try to ensure that any repetitive use of such words or phrases is done in such a way that it makes sense in the context of the writing to avoid it standing out like a sore thumb.