Monday, December 6, 2010

3 Easy Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills



photo by Patrick Gage on Flickr

Even if you have a good grasp of basic writing concepts, you should always strive to be a better writer. While there are many writing clinics, boot camps and daily writing exercises awaiting your spare time, there are other ways to improve your writing that do not require great quantities of time and money. You should definitely work to develop your own process and use methods that inspire you, but when you are short on time and energy, here are 3 easy ways to immediately improve your writing skills:

One of the keys to being a good writer is to be an avid reader! Finding authors whose work you devour and love can teach you many things about how to write. You can learn what attracts you stylistically, what subjects really grab your attention, and conversely, what annoys you. Typically, the way to create your best work is to write about what you love, and there is certainly nothing wrong with emulating an author whom you admire.

Another effective way to improve your writing skills is to memorize correct grammar and punctuation rules. Not only does correct grammar show that you are professional and competent, but it will also make your writing look cleaner. A writing style manual is one of the best investments you can make to fine-tune your grammar and punctuation.

Finally, another effective way to improve your writing skills is to solicit a little constructive criticism from your friends and family. Select people that you can trust to intelligently analyze your work and who will give their honest opinions. While it makes you feel good to hear that you are an amazing writer, a candid evaluation is often the best way to recognize any flaws in your work and ultimately improve as a writer.

1 comment:

  1. Reading greatly helps me write better and inspires me in so many ways. People just don’t sit down with a book like they used to. I make my son homemade books and illustrations that I put in a small photo album for him to easily flip through and read for bed. Books are the best thing since TV. If you know what I mean.

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