Simple Tips on How To Make Your Writing Better

Writing can be hard for some people, while others it comes naturally. Don’t worry though, sometimes even the best of writers struggle, and do their best to improve their writing. Here are some easy ways to make your writing better.

Word Choice

Choosing words in probably one of the most important tip I could give you. Choosing your words can define your tone, mood, theme, and even make your writing more clear to understand. To do this, all you have to do is something simple like replacing the common word said with inquired, replied, reasoned, answered, responded, rebuked, and there are so many other words you could use rather than said. I mean, who wants to hear an entire story with said following every piece of dialogue?

But said isn’t the only word you could replace. You could switch happy to blissful. Sad to sorrowful. Worried to perturbed. In order to do this simple change, all you need to do is look up synonyms or use a thesaurus. Both ways could give you multiple ideas on changing words.

You also don’t have to start adding words right off the bat, you can write your story, then go through and change words to make your writing more interesting to the reader.

Add Details

Even Non-Fiction books include details. It is crucial to add descriptive details when writing. If you don’t, your story will be brought off as pretty bland and boring.

Adding details is easier than than most people think. If you don’t have a good idea on how to describe your character’s surroundings, use sensory details. There are five parts to sensory details: smell, taste, touch, see, and hear. What does your character see? Maybe that’s mountains running for miles. Maybe that’s watching the autumn leaves fall onto the ground. Does your character smell the serene vanilla scent of a candle in the distance or maybe they can feel the wind as it brushes against their face. 

Word choice also plays a part. Let’s say your writing about Christmas and your describing the presents your character sees under the Christmas tree. Instead of writing, I saw the pretty presents under the tree, say, my eyes ran across the vivid wrapping paper of the perfectly wrapped boxes that laid beneath the tree. Do you see how the change in word choice made the image of the picture stronger in your mind?

Correct Punctuation

I know you may not be writing the next new novel series, but using the correct punctuation in your writings helps make your story much better. 

Do I add a comma or a semi-colon here? Sometimes determining what punctuation to add where is difficult, but it truly does improve your writing. A story without periods, has no sentences. A story without quotation marks, has no dialogue. A story without commas, could throw off the mood your trying to develop. Punctuation is important because it helps have pauses and form dialogue in your stories, and improving the tone and plot along the way. Punctuation isn’t always fun to do and use, but it makes everything so much better.

Capitalization

Short and simple; what is punctuation without capitalization?

Planning

I know, no one wants to do planning, they just want to jump right into writing. The thing is…having a well structured plan works and makes your plot neater.

Even though planning can take some time, it is better than going in with no plan. Your ideas get scattered because new thoughts come to you, the order of events become confusing, and your story just sort of starts to fall apart from there. Yes, I understand you get new ideas all the time that you like better than your original, but you can tweak your plot diagram design and the order of events; you can take out things and add things, just be ready to move and switch things around so your writing makes more sense.

There you go! Those are some easy, but some important tips to consider while writing. I hope this helped you a lot. I will try to add more posts and tips about writing that can help people develop better stories.

One thing to note: All these pictures are from Unsplash.