Improve Your Writing Skills
As an aspiring writer, there are immense challenges involved as you navigate the murky waters of writing. The challenges may appear insurmountable but perhaps what you need is advice and inspiration for today’s writer; the very advises and inspirations this article shall discuss.
Building a career as a writer is hard enough a challenge for many writers today. Due to the tight competition, you are constantly needed to really upgrade your writing skill in order to stand out from the rest. Here are 5 tips to improve your writing skills.
Start With the Obvious – Improve Your Vocabulary
Your readers would love to read “sluggish” instead of “very slow” in your article. As a general rule, it is better and far more engaging if you make use of the more specific words to express your ideas.
Why would you choose the words “really good” if you could choose “superb” or “magnificent”? The problem with average writers is that they are too lazy to dig deeper for more powerful words and incorporate those in their works. Therefore, expand your vocabulary and you will find the beauty behind each word.
Be an English Spelling Expert
In writing, it is a cardinal sin to depend on the auto correct features of word processing programs. You have to master the English word spelling as the programs may not always come to your aid. Note that the English language has words full of similarly spelled the word.
This way, you will not be confused by common spelling blunders such as “heart” or “hearth.” You may also be able to avoid the now rampant spelling mistakes made by the internet folks or as a result of too much use of slang. You will now be able to clearly see the difference between “your” and “you’re.”
Be an Avid Reader
This tip probably is the corniest in the list. However, this good old tip still delivers so you’d better take it seriously. By reading, and we mean reading any kind of stuff, you could gauge several important aspects of writing skills.
You may learn to use words properly. You could also get in touch with different writing styles. Find some books or articles which interest you most. This way you could keep your interests and understand the wordings and the expressions in them, making it a win-win situation.
Upgrade Your English Grammar
A neat article is a grammatically correct one. Proper and near-flawless grammar will show your readers that you really know what you are writing about, and they will most likely take your message seriously.
As they read through your properly situated punctuations, they learn that you are an expert in the language hence will be more keen to pick the message you are trying to pass across. Therefore, always check and recheck your work before committing it to public scrutiny. Do it at least twice, for any general and minor mistakes. If you still have doubts about your grammar, you might always ask your experienced friends to double check and proofread it for you.
Keep Practicing
If you love your work, then keep practicing. Mistakes are a natural and it is only how you harness them that determines how you progress in your writing career so learn from them and do not take them as stumbling blocks.
Allocate a special time for your works. At first, writing might be a fun activity, but if you want to turn into pro writer, dedicate a great deal of time on it and keep practicing. Always keep in mind that your first draft is not your master piece.
And there you have it. If you wish to excel as a writer, you will need to start by addressing the simple and often-ignored guidelines. The above-mentioned tips can get you going and keep you on the right path towards your dream of becoming a professional author.