10 Effective Ways to Begin Your Writing Journey.

The world’s greatest writers and authors were not born writers, they worked their way up. How do you master the art of writing and perfecting it like it’s no one’s business? You have to start somewhere, right?

, “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start writing crap and thinking it is good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.”

Octavia E. Butler

In this article, you will find a list of 10 principles of effective writing that will help you write in simple English but still sound professional.

 Writing style

The style of your writing matters a lot not only to you but also to your audience. The best way to identify your writing style is by trying to discover your audience’s goals. In doing this, you need to consider the following aspects;

1. Who your audience is
2. What you need from them
3. What they need from you
4. Their priorities
5. The mutual benefits

Identifying who your audiences are will help you curate the style you will use in your writing piece.

What do you need from the? Let’s say, you need attention in a way that whatever you write, they will always anticipate more. Then what is your writing style going to be?

It is most likely that all they want is to continue reading your work and learning new things from you. The style that you use in your writing will always keep your audience on the look for your new content. Therefore, there is a mutual benefit between the two parties.

How can you improve your writing?

To improve your writing, follow the practices below.

Read more

Reading is always the best way to learn a lot about writing. It is like watching so many movies until you develop a passion for acting. Every skill or talent needs practice and by reading, you will be able to identify what writing style you are interested in. in reading what someone else wrote, you are developing a skill to write.

Identify your strengths and weaknesses

Here you will be able to separate what you want and what you do not want. Narrowing down to your major goal in writing includes knowing what strengths you have and following that path. Learn more about your interests and zoom in on what your writing style would be.

Do not force it.

Do not force it. Let it come naturally and flow with it.

 Tone

There are several tones in writing which dictate how we write.

Face-to-face communication usually shows the tone of the communication through facial expressions, voice pitch, and gestures hence the information received can easily depict the other person’s character or attitude towards that topic of conversation.

Tones, in writing, are also used to know how the writer feels about a certain topic. He or she will express their emotion and attitude through tone. Are they worried, anxious, hopeful, happy, friendly, curious, or surprised? The reader will be able to know what tone you are using to express yourself.

Clarity

How clear is the message being passed to your audience? This is the question that you need to ask yourself before you deliver your work. Is it clear enough for the readers to be satisfied and not come up with many questions?

Sometimes you’ll read a piece of writing and at some point, you get confused that you have to re-read to understand.

Now, it should remain clear that suspense is not related to the clarity of the story. At the end of written material, the storyteller leaves you in suspense because it is one of the characteristics of writing. Still, clarity has to do with getting the story flowing without any mix-up or confusion to the audience. Lack of clarity means poor writing skills.

Consistency

This is a very important principle of effective writing. It shows how consistent you are in your work. This means, if you are writing about the history of a certain country, for instance, you have to make the story flow and remain consistent in your narrative. If you become inconsistent, your audience will end up not reading to the end of the story because they might get bored and leave. If the story has a consistent flow, the audience’s attention will also be consistent in reading your written material.

Brevity

Being brief does not apply to how long your article is, it simply means that in whatever message you are trying to pass across, don’t make it too long. The shorter the message the better as long as it is clear and complete. Do not write long sentences that explain the same thing or try to explain something that the audience finds obvious. This applies to every genre.

Honesty

Any information you give to your readers should root from somewhere. The information should be informative rather than misleading the audience. Police often use the phrase “You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law.” You can write all you want but if you become misleading to your audience, they will use it as a judgment to rule out whether they read your content or not. You either write in honesty or remain silent. Your originality is what carries the weight.

Passion

Like I said in the beginning, no successful writer was born a writer. They had the passion to write and so they followed the lead of their passion and ended up being top leading writers. Passion drives value. Your passion will enable you to be proficient and master the tactics of writing your way up to becoming a pro writer.

Practice: reading and revision.

Learning is a process and we never stop learning unless we stop breathing. Practice writing in many ways. Learn from others above you.

Reading enables your brain to adjust to a writer mode since you embed your brain into the writer’s position by following along with the story. You imagine a lot of ideas that you could have written if you were the reader, twisting the story your own way, in your mind. In this process, your brain will be programmed to want to write and create your own ideas. This reading practice create writers.

Communication

Communication is the key to unlocking every possibility. You communicate to get ideas, learn a new thing, teach someone something, and create something new or even just to listen to what others say. This principle is effective in every aspect of writing.

Through writing, passing information is not just a one-way thing. You are communicating to your audience and they will give you feedback on whatever message you passed on to them. Effective writing has clear and precise communication between two parties; the writer and the readers.

Structure and formatting

A well-written material has to be error-free and well-formatted to fit with the style of choice. Grammar is important in writing and you do not want your audience to find grammar mistakes and poor arrangement of your sentences. English is simple but complex as well.

The use of grammar correctly will create high-quality content that is readable. Practice your grammar skills and try to perfect them to a certain point because no one is perfect anyway. You only need to be at a grammatical standard level to achieve your writing skills one day at a time. These are the 10 principles of effective writing that will help you write your work in simple English.

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