Richard Norton, associate creative director at customer engagement agency Indicia provides 10 quick-fire tips to help you become a better writer in an instant
The first rule of writing is simple: understand your audience. Marketers are becoming ever more time poor with important decisions needing to be made in a hurry.
Thrive on creativity
Enjoy it. Even if you don’t enjoy it. The problem is, the nature of how you’re feeling when you craft your communication will always come through in the text itself. If you’re bored, you’ll write boring words. If you’re intimidated and unsure of what you’re trying to convey, you’ll be unsettlingly vague with a tendency to deviate from what you really want to say.
Seize the challenge. Shake it up. To sell your story, it pays to be bold. Every communication you craft can be brilliant. It simply demands focus and application.
Hone on social
Maybe it’s a key part of your life. Maybe it isn’t. It should be.
Social is a wonderful place to sharpen your copy. Why? Because of the need for brevity, clarity and precision. You can’t waffle on Snapchat. And you don’t really want to fluff on Facebook.
And then we have Twitter, 140 characters. You might think: what’s the point? But I say that each tweet serves as a tiny universe of potent possibilities. As a writing tool, it will help you sort your wheat from your chaff. Use it to hone your thoughts into insightful gems. It works.
That killer first sentence
Surprise. Dazzle. Delight. As a writer you need to make the reader desperate to know what comes next. Don’t do the obvious. The same goes with email subject lines. Make a statement your audience isn’t expecting. Every first line you write needs to create a sense of drama, anticipation and surprise.
Active voice all the way
George Orwell disliked the passive voice. The passive voice was disliked by George Orwell. Notice the difference? The first sentence uses the active voice. The second is passive.
What’s the big deal? Well, I recommend you always write in the active. It is more direct, offers greater clarity and uses less words.
Here is a simple formula that makes the whole passive-active shenanigans much easier to understand: Subject-Verb-Object. ‘The cat sat on the mat.’ This is obviously much better than ‘The mat was sat on by the cat’.
Look for the likes of ‘was’, ‘were’, ‘been’, ‘being’ and you will probably uncover some unsightly passive-voice sentence construction.
Use of the word ‘by’ is also a tell-tale sign. Be a word detective. Search for the clues. They reveal a lot.
Bye-bye weak words
The English language is filled with weak, overused words and phrases that add nothing. It is your duty to be strong and purge them from your writing.
They include ‘very’, ‘things’, ‘stuff’, ‘really’, ‘it’ and ‘in order to’.
Don’t tell staff you’re very happy with their efforts; tell them you’re delighted. And never start a letter with ‘I’d thought I’d write to you.’ That’s stating the obvious.
Be specific. This way your words will have greater clarity and impact.
Use short sentences
Are you a long-sentence writer? The kind of communicator whose sentences are packed with dense prepositions and confusing conjunctions that ultimately turns each sentence into a mini marathon. I say: write short. Though it does pay to mix it up. Too. Many. Short. Sentences. Will. Weird. Out. Your. Reader.
Get into a rhythm. It’s perfectly fine to make one statement at a time. Then throw in a longer sentence when you need to convey a more complex idea. Like this.
Simple words are best
Some people like to show off their knowledge. Others slip into an annoying habit of relying too heavily on jargon. You should do neither. As a rule, your words will be understood more readily if you choose the easier options.
This doesn’t mean deliberately dumbing down your writing. It means writing for your audience. What is the point of using clever words like paralepsis or autolatrist if your reader has no idea what you’re talking about?
Use pictures, they work
As visual media continues to evolve, choosing the right imagery will become vital to your success.
Most people already have a limited attention span and often skim their way through words to extract what they’re looking for. Long-winded posts with nothing but text can turn many visitors away.
Incorporating images is a natural way to grab their attention and entice them to explore the content in greater detail.
Have a go, keep going
Acclaimed author and public speaker Malcolm Gladwell has often mentioned how expertise is honed through 10,000 hours of practice. Yes, this does sound daunting. But wait a second, you’ve been writing for most of your life. Therefore your ability to soar is more a matter of tweaks rather than learning a new skill.
So, what can we conclude? If you write to the ideas set out above, your messages will be instantly more effective. Your signal will cut through the noise. Your audience will respond. They will convert your words into actions and success will follow. It is inevitable. It is unstoppable. This is what words can do.
