All professional writers have an arsenal of tried-and-true methods to sharpen their focus, give their writing that ‘shareable’ quality and make what they’re selling sound irresistible.
I’ve been writing on behalf of businesses, from one-(wo)man bands to international corporations, for nine years now. Here are my top tips for improving your writing, quickly and easily.
1: Delete your first sentence
Your first sentence is almost always humdrum. Unless inspiration has alighted, perfectly formed (so rare that it’s the stuff of legends), you’ll almost always want to kill that first sentence.
Why? ‘Cause it’s dull. It’s your soft small talk introduction. And nobody’s got time for that.
2: Stack your action
Think about your blog post, article or web page as an inverted pyramid – all the action and excitement happens in the beginning. This is the traditional structure of a news article, designed for the subeditor to be cut from the bottom, as space constraints dictate.
Like an action movie, your blog or article needs to open in the most, or second-most, exciting spot. You can give into background information if you wish, but don’t be that guy who tells a really dull story by first covering all minute details before limping to the punch-line.
This tip is not only for structuring your story but also for your sentences – pack the action at the beginning, and put the caveats and other necessary details in between commas in the middle or end of the sentence.
3: Stand for something
When blogging for business, you want to make your writing shareable. You’re not only seeking to satisfy your readers – you want them to share – so your initial readership becomes your distribution network. People share content online because it makes them look smart, connected, funny, compassionate, quirky or intriguing.
So how do you do make your writing shareable? By taking a stand. State your opinion, why you hold it, and why the reader should care. You need to ignite emotions if you want to compel people to share.
4: Weave in personal details
Many first-time bloggers mistakenly assume that they need to be highly personal to be effective. But this gets old quickly.
Most of us don’t lead such exciting and glamorous lives that others want to live vicariously through our blog. This is especially so if we’re also attempting to blog for business. Deconstructing your wild weekends won’t help your professional reputation unless you’re an adult entertainer. In which case, carry on.
5: Don’t break your flow
You know when you’re writing in the flow and then you hit a speed-hump because you can’t quite put your finger on a fact or turn of phrase? Add in an XXXX and carry on. For the love of all things holy, do not break your flow to Google or Facebook something. Fly on over that speed hump and return to your Xs later.
6: Cull the little words
Tight, punchy writing is sparse. The little words should be the first to go, followed by side-by-side adjectives, waiting to be seen, a lot of which are tautology.
7: Think rhythm
This may be the hardest to teach because, like music, it’s a felt experience. Read your writing aloud. If it sounds clunky, jangly or thumping, smooth it over until it sounds like aged fine wine.
8: Never use superlatives
Know how to kill your credibility quicker than a drunken Hen’s night out? Always using over-the-top superlatives – it doesn’t sound confident, it sounds implausible. Yes, I’m being ironic and yes, I’m deadly serious.
9: One sentence, not two
If you need a second sentence to explain the first, you need to rewrite your sentence.
10: When in doubt …
Don’t be afraid of short sentences. Don’t bulk out something because you don’t feel it’s long enough. Take as many words as you need to make your point, and not one more. And when in doubt over including something, leave it out.
Learn how to write quickly and effectively, on subjects that your audience actually cares about. Join us at our upcoming Blogging for Business courses.
