Let’s help each other grow in this little community! Let’s expand and mutate, together shall we?
Another article I’ve been meaning to write is writing tips. I’m not an expert but I know grammar well enough to at least give a tip or two. I’m old school, was trained to do grammar in the old days, with no shortcuts. I’m not the best in our class in craft neither am I the least, but I assure you I can compete well.
Really, don’t get me wrong. If I came out strong sorry, I only mean to help by giving tips. If it helps, then good! If not, I’m sorry. I am pretty straightforward with my approach because I really don’t like my sons to be going back and forth over again. I’m the one sweep kind. I taught them how to read myself and they’re good at it. Confident enough that simple instructions to do online transactions like purchasing at this age is easy, -grocery items and household things by themselves.
Will try to simplify.
Review. Everyone hates a review. Me? Hahaha! All the more. I am not the kind to make edits, like my friend would say, “wlay editay!” (no edits). I am not really apt for the challenge since I haven’t written for a while and only into writing for 10 months, so I need to re-hone the skill. What I am saying is simple. As long as basic grammar holds, be it. No need to pressure or push yourself, this is writing and you’re practicing. Take it and leave the rest.
Write every day! Focus on a topic. It’s easy to deviate and be lost in thoughts. Since you are a real, real beginner, then focus on simple subjects. Before we were encouraged to write a journal, begin the journey from there and you will see a lot of improvement as you go along!
Grammarly. If you choose to pace up, ok, download free Grammarly. This way, you can make edits on grammar, conveniently, and really helps. Been using grammarly for the edits but I'm vigilant, as my laziness really strikes all the time. There are loopholes in Grammarly, but let's focus on grammar for now. Don’t go for the premium, don’t waste money on this as you are still developing. And importantly, you will re-learn basic grammar along the way. This will pave the way for you to create a more complex article without you getting embarrassed by the corrections. Also, make a point that you’d learn. Oh! One more thing, not all Grammarly correction is coherent, it lacks this ability at some point that it losses its coherence along the way. COHERENCE, the quality of forming a unified whole. Sentence structure plus subject, object, and the focus of the story – content.
Re-read your short paragraphs. This helps you think of the topic you want to share. And assess how far you have expressed your thoughts on the subject you chose. I encourage you to start with simple topics since you are still growing. I’d like people to grow with confidence rather than pace up and in the end, confidence is quite shaky!
Keep it simple. The simpler, the better. Nothing complex especially with the vocabulary. The narrative is easy as this doesn’t drain much of your thinking power! Poetry is exhausting to the mind and emotions, plus the rhymes and words need a lot of work. You can work on synonyms/antonyms, with words it's easier but depends on your curiosity. So, go for a narrative. Perhaps you can start with movie/teleseries reviews the most often you’d watch. Or novel or comics review, if you were into gaming, sure thing. So, if you want to work on poetry… do explore but be warned, if you love to rhyme, vocabulary is a must. But you can always start simple, just focus on simple topics you want to keep.
In time you re-read all your articles and you feel like you are articulate enough, they can move on to the next step. Complex topic. You will be ready for the integration of the research review and everything else on your plate. I really, hope this helps.
Disclaimer: I am not aiming for you to be a content writer because I am far from that. I was never a content writer, as there are requirements for that which I am not familiar with. This is just writing practice to help improve grammar and topic development. What I am offering is you can improve on writing your thoughts then eventually you will learn anything you'd aim to learn, with due practice and diligence!
August 5, 2022.
Image: pinterest
It seems to me that you are going in the right way because practicing all these rules needs an additional step of thinking and writing and re-writing again and again. Sometimes to write a single article you make about 15 to 20 edits each time before publishing on a platform. There is nothing harder than writing and nothing easier than copy and pasting. At least it is easier than Copywriting Network because it requires more steps for article validation like the redundancy of words or even correct use of sense that you couldn't find on free grammarly app.