Top 10 Tips For New Writers - Writing tips
Everything we do in life is governed by rules; even if those rules are unwritten, we follow them and expect others to do the same. What makes you think writing is any different? It isn't supposed to be that way, and it isn't. The following guidelines will help you write better. If someone tells you that rules are meant to be broken, remember that you must first grasp the rules before attempting to bend or break them; otherwise, you will be sloppy rather than radical.
If you want others to take you seriously, you must follow the rules below.
Be true to yourself
Depending on the type of writing you're doing, write from the heart, the mind, or the gut. A love letter should be written with your heart, while a business letter should be written with your intellect, and your gut instinct should never be ignored. You will always appear fake if you try to replicate someone else's style, no matter how much you appreciate it. Discover your own own style and voice.
Understand Your Subject
Write about things you're familiar with. Although this may seem self-evident, you don't have to look far to find a large number of people posting articles in which it is plain that they have minimal knowledge of the topic area. Even to the inexperienced eye, this style of writing appears thin, lifeless, and unconvincing. You should strive for writing that has depth; something that is well-rounded, healthy, and has a life of its own. If you are required to write about a topic that you are unfamiliar with, make an attempt to research it. There's always the internet if you can't get to the library. Ignorance has no justification. There is no justification for attempting to impose a badly researched piece on your audience.readers. Do you want your readers to point out that you have no idea what you're talking about?
Be enthusiastic about it
Write about topics that pique your curiosity. You have little chance of piqueing your reader's interest if you are uninterested in your subject matter. If you're in a scenario where you have no choice but to write about something you don't care about, at the very least try to come up with an innovative approach; this will stimulate both you and your reader. Your writing will be bland and boring if you can't even pique someone's interest in your subject.
Punctuate with pride
Don't be one of those folks who thinks punctuation isn't important: it is. Consider this: if these folks truly think that, why do they use punctuation at all? Why don't they just keep writing without any commas or dots? That is unquestionably more rational than inserting dots and commas in the incorrect places. The truth is that they are too lazy to study punctuation rules and believe that they can get away with it by dismissing punctuation as irrelevant. Over the last forty years or more, punctuation has had a terrible rep, but I believe it is poised to get a makeover. These things happen in cycles, and it appears that punctuation is going to go through one.
finally see the light of day. Punctuation that is correct could be the new black. If you don't accept this, how do you explain why "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" was purchased by tens of thousands of people? You should learn about punctuation even if you have no interest in writing elegant text. Without it, your writing will be difficult to read at best and incomprehensible at worst. You'll be perplexed as to why your serious work is being mocked.
Keep the apostrophe in mind
This is, after all, a part of punctuation. Apostrophes, in my opinion, have been disregarded or abused for so long that they now merit their own mention. I can deal with commas and full stops being typed wrongly, but an incorrectly inserted apostrophe turns me red. Why do so many individuals persist on using the apostrophe even if they clearly don't understand what it's for? It baffles me. An incorrectly positioned apostrophe is to writing what a large, unsightly wart is to a gorgeous face's nose. People who are cruel will point and laugh at you. Do you believe I'm exaggerating? Why did so many people agree with me if I am in the minority on this issue? Why did so many people buy "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" that it was named Book of the Year? Perhaps they mistook the article for one about a panda.
Improve your grammar skills
Grammar rules are not difficult to learn. Grammar was taught in school to even small children in the past. Grammar, like mathematical tables, is no longer considered a significant subject. Most people can get by in life without remembering the tables that were formerly memorized by every student who ever attended school. Electronic calculators have replaced the requirement to comprehend fundamental grammar, but nothing has replaced the necessity to learn basic grammar. Please don't make the mistake of relying on your word processor's "grammar check": I'm not saying it's completely useless, but if you don't know the rules yourself, you're asking for trouble.
By following your word processing program's instructions, you can come up with some amusing results. Another advantage of grammatical rules is that they do not change over time, so once you master them, they will serve you well for the rest of your writing career. Grammar, along with punctuation, decides whether or not your writing makes sense. You won't know if your writing makes sense if you don't know the guidelines, but others will, believe me. (It's time to point and laugh again.
Spell correctly
In order to write properly, you must be able to spell. If punctuation is putty for your windows, spelling is the bricks that make up your home. You can't build a house if you don't have any bricks. You may find it difficult to believe, but spelling used to be taught in schools back in the day. The majority of individuals nowadays write using a word processor with a spell check feature. Many of these people clearly do not bother to utilize their spell checker. This kind of indolence is unforgivable. However, you should not rely solely on the spell checker: it is merely a machine attempting to infer what you mean.You've jumbled up a word. If you're unsure about a word, look it up in a dictionary: knowing the correct meaning as well as the correct spelling never hurts. Never forget that spell check will remove your words from context: if you put "He sold his soul to Santa," you can't blame the spell checker for misinterpreting your intent. If you didn't fix it, people would laugh at you cruelly.
Keep it short and sweet
Never make the mistake of adding unnecessary or irrelevant elements to your work. Stick to the topic you mentioned in your title; after all, it's the title that drew the reader in the first place. If the body of your work fails to live up to the title's expectations, the reader will feel duped, and no one hates being duped, so your reader will move on to read someone they can trust. Do not try to increase the word count by adding a few adverbs or adjectives; this never works and makes the piece harder to read. Keep it simple; whether people are reading for fun or education, bumpy prose and jargon will turn them off.
They aren't reading your work to be impressed by your wit or language. You're writing on the wrong subject or from the wrong angle if you run out of things to say before your work reaches the length you want.
Read and reread
It's tedious, but necessary. We don't want to be reading the final product over and over again, making modifications, no matter how much we like the writing process. We'd rather start writing the next essay that's been brewing in our heads, but we have to read, re-read, revise, and revise some more. It's easy to make mistakes, especially if you've been writing for a long time. If you do not rectify your errors before publishing, you will lose your audience's faith. (I'll never get over the fact that one of my favorite authors inadvertently changed a main character's birthday halfway through a novel.) How could I ever trust his people if they were so easily moved?
birthdays?) You wouldn't sell an incomplete piece of furniture to a buyer if you were a carpenter. If you were a tailor, you would never sell a customer a garment that had not been ironed. The author should never present an unpolished piece of writing to the reader.
Consider it for a while
Don't feel compelled to publish your work as soon as it's finished. Allow it to rest. If it's ready for publishing, it'll be ready tomorrow, but if it's not, you'll have given yourself an opportunity to make a last-minute change. This is especially important when writing shorter pieces. If you've spent months redrafting a novel, you'll probably be able to tell if the final draft is satisfactory, but it's all too easy to scribble and send off short items like articles or letters, only to later regret our haste. There is always room for development, and what appears to be a piece of art in the twilight light may not appear so well in the morning light.the chilly brightness of the morning
Thank you for these tips. I see a lot of writers adding the apostrophe in their titles as if it's compulsory.