Writing, you may do every day, but do you want to make your written prose stand out in front of everyone?
There’s no guarantee you’re going to get the next Man Booker or Pulitzer Prize, or be the next Chimamanda Ngoji Adiche or Emily Bronti. But if you want to be a good writer, you have to follow some guidelines. Lane Green, a former arts editor and columnist known as The Economist's language guru, has seven tips for being a good writer.
1. Start with ambition
Forget about the point at which you want to argue or tell the story. Start with a description or example that will give the reader the right mood to read your writing. "Many years later, when he had to face the firing squad ...." Thus began his famous work 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' or 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by the author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
2. Keep sentences short
Writing in short sentences does not mean that the reader's talent is diminished. But it is not so easy to do. But it is very important. It's not a style, it's just a human biological feature: because that's how our brain works.To understand a long sentence, especially one that has multiple subordinate clauses, the reader has to keep the grammar as well as the main subject in mind. Which is much more difficult and there is no point in keeping the reader busy with the grammar of your writing. Rather, the emphasis should be on the main content or subject matter of the writing.
3. At the same time, you have to write sentences of different lengths
You may have heard: "Everything should have a sense of moderation, even moderation must have a sense of moderation." Where writing in short sentences should be used the most, but if all the sentences are short and there are no other types of sentences, it will make your writing a kind of cut-and-paste feeling. It will give the reader a kind of rat-tat-tat feeling that you may not have wanted to give in reality and it may also cause annoyance to the reader. So you have to write all kinds of sentences.
4. Use the right words
Using the right words gives the reader the feeling of seeing, smelling, tasting, or touching with the toes. It gives the reader something with which they draw a kind of picture with the eyes of their mind. Combining these images and words will make your message memorable and interesting to the reader.
5. Avoid abstract words
In particular, these are sometimes called "nominees" or better known as "zombie nouns or ghost nouns". These are much more inanimate words such as "events", "phenomena", "levels" or "observations". What does Phenomena actually sound like? How can observation be felt? There is an abundance of such words in institutional, bureaucratic and other ancient writings. Instead, choose words that are clearly imaginative and specific to the subject matter.
6. Read your writing aloudly
Just writing, rewriting and editing on your own is not enough, but read aloud. As you read, you will realize that you have forgotten or missed some kind of word while writing. If it's hard to say, it's hard to read. You can also easily catch where the rhythm has fallen.
. Finish firmly Use the strongest word or phrase you know for the end. Note what kind of words you are choosing. Try to finish with syllables that are even stronger, or stronger. The last words are the most important. Even if you don't believe us, you can't ignore Irene Nemirovsky. He said the same thing in his composition suite franchise.
these are sometimes called "nominees" or better known as "zombie nouns or ghost nouns". These are much more inanimate words such as "events", "phenomena", "levels" or "observations". What does Phenomena actually sound like? How can observation be felt? There is an abundance of such words in institutional, bureaucratic and other ancient writings. Instead, choose words that are clearly imaginative and specific to the subject matter.