How to Write Better
If your writing gets better then you will make cool new friends. You might get career opportunities. You might meet the love of your life.
I don’t believe that good writing should be simple nor complicated. Nor does writing need to be long form or short form. Good writing is just writing that conveys your intentions as clearly as possible.
Clarity of intention has a practical purpose. Bad writing is like a tsunami that whips the reader in a different directions. This makes them frustrated. But good writing is like a scalpel in brain surgery. It’s so sharp that it changes the reader’s mind without them feeling it, and you will get them onside.
If you do these things you will write more clearly than most people:
Use less words. Rewrite your sentences with less words. And then stop just before the meaning starts to change so you don’t over cut. This will make it clearer without compromising intentions. Once I write something, I revisit it the next day and it makes it more obvious what to cut. For example,
Bad writing is like a fat tsunami that whips the reader in a different directions.
can be made better with
Bad writing is like a tsunami that whips the reader around.
But if long sentences are a stylistic choice in your fiction writing, then ignore this advice.
Split up sentences. If you can split a sentence into two without changing the meaning, do it. For example,
Bad writing is like a fat tsunami that whips the reader in a different directions, which makes them frustrated.
Is too much.
Bad writing is like a fat tsunami that whips the reader in a different directions. This makes them frustrated.
Is better.
Imagine someone is screaming ‘just fuckin’ say it’ the whole time you are writing. If you do this you will discover what you are actually thinking.
Important stuff comes first. Rank how crucial each paragraph is. Then put the best stuff at the top. Note that using ‘less words’ is more important than this tip.
Your sentence structure should be mathematical. If you have a mathematical background, this should come easier - frame your sentences as if they were deductive logic arguments. Use classic sentence structures like ‘If A, then B’. Don’t complicate. For all you literature nerds who are gonna rage at me for saying this - Jane Austen writes like this.
Don’t say ‘I think’. It is assumed that your writing is your opinion. If you must, quantify the uncertainty by saying ‘its likely that X’. Don’t overly hedge what you think. If you need to say stuff like ‘ohhh maybe this but maybe that, but actually I’m not sure’, then rethink your argument.
Marginal clarity matters more than detail. If you can increase clarity by 20% but need to sacrifice 5% of detail then do it. Just put details in an appendix.
Write as much as possible. I write for around 4 hours every day. Bonus points if you put things on a blog.
Everything above applies to speaking to people too.