Do you sound like your 5th grade English teacher?
You might if your writing is proper, polite, and just polished enough not to embarrass anyone. If it is dry, uneventful, and moves in one sentence sized bunches. It does. And it might work fine for your 5th grade English teacher, but it’s not fine for everyone else.
But what does it lack, it lacks feeling, emotion, and oomph. It lacks any real tone that the reader can relate to. Changing your style into a professional and conversational style will not only be more fun for your client to read, but increase the likelihood of them contacting you because they enjoyed it.
1. Writing Long Paragraphs
Think of your writing as a speech or a conversation. Think of punctuation as a place to pause, catch your breath, and emphasize what you will say next as strongly as you did before. Writing long paragraphs is like having a speech run too long or listening to a professor droning on one point that they made an hour ago. The longer they become, the less interesting they become. Even worse, long paragraphs are even intimidating to some readers and they will avoid it due to its size and length.
2. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself
When you write, do you believe you can’t use “And” at the beginning of a sentence? Do you believe you can’t have a sentence that is only one word? Do you believe that spoken language and writing have separate rules?
If you do, then you are listening to the “authorities” of writing. The authorities of writing are based on old and archaic rules that were created hundreds of years ago. And fail to evolve with the times.
Evolution. That is the main problem with writing rules as they lack evolution. Spoken language is constantly evolving as seen in writing from people two centuries ago, to people from 10 years ago.
Thus, you must evolve your writing with the times as the spoken word evolves.
3. Staying Detached
When you attempt to portray your writing in a way that is without feeling, without story. You have a paper without ups and downs, you have a paper without soul. It will read like sandpaper instead of wax-paper. And it will grind on and on until your audience leaves in boredom and frustration. Just try to read a Science Journal and you will understand.
4. Not editing your Papers, editing them too soon, or forgetting to get a professional second opinion.
Many people never edit their papers because they assume it is okay when they write it. Many assume that they communicated effectively and other people will understand what they are trying to say. Even more, they edit it right after or in only a short time after they write it. The big issue with this is that, the residual effects of your writing are still in your head and much of your writing still sounds good in your head.
Too break this habit, you need to take a few hours break and come back with a fresh look. Or even better, you get a second pair of eyes to look it over with a new angle, a new aspect. Breathing life into it. This way you can get a second opinion and bring your writing to a whole new level.
5. Don’t ignore your Readers, Peers, and Social Media
Often writers ignore who they are writing for; they write complete text giving less notice to what their others have to say about it. Even more social media comments need to be taken seriously enough to alter it totally or be proud of it. Listen to the readers review, ignoring that may get you out of business or out of class.
You might if your writing is proper, polite, and just polished enough not to embarrass anyone. If it is dry, uneventful, and moves in one sentence sized bunches. It does. And it might work fine for your 5th grade English teacher, but it’s not fine for everyone else.
But what does it lack, it lacks feeling, emotion, and oomph. It lacks any real tone that the reader can relate to. Changing your style into a professional and conversational style will not only be more fun for your client to read, but increase the likelihood of them contacting you because they enjoyed it.
1. Writing Long Paragraphs
Think of your writing as a speech or a conversation. Think of punctuation as a place to pause, catch your breath, and emphasize what you will say next as strongly as you did before. Writing long paragraphs is like having a speech run too long or listening to a professor droning on one point that they made an hour ago. The longer they become, the less interesting they become. Even worse, long paragraphs are even intimidating to some readers and they will avoid it due to its size and length.
2. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself
When you write, do you believe you can’t use “And” at the beginning of a sentence? Do you believe you can’t have a sentence that is only one word? Do you believe that spoken language and writing have separate rules?
If you do, then you are listening to the “authorities” of writing. The authorities of writing are based on old and archaic rules that were created hundreds of years ago. And fail to evolve with the times.
Evolution. That is the main problem with writing rules as they lack evolution. Spoken language is constantly evolving as seen in writing from people two centuries ago, to people from 10 years ago.
Thus, you must evolve your writing with the times as the spoken word evolves.
3. Staying Detached
When you attempt to portray your writing in a way that is without feeling, without story. You have a paper without ups and downs, you have a paper without soul. It will read like sandpaper instead of wax-paper. And it will grind on and on until your audience leaves in boredom and frustration. Just try to read a Science Journal and you will understand.
4. Not editing your Papers, editing them too soon, or forgetting to get a professional second opinion.
Many people never edit their papers because they assume it is okay when they write it. Many assume that they communicated effectively and other people will understand what they are trying to say. Even more, they edit it right after or in only a short time after they write it. The big issue with this is that, the residual effects of your writing are still in your head and much of your writing still sounds good in your head.
Too break this habit, you need to take a few hours break and come back with a fresh look. Or even better, you get a second pair of eyes to look it over with a new angle, a new aspect. Breathing life into it. This way you can get a second opinion and bring your writing to a whole new level.
5. Don’t ignore your Readers, Peers, and Social Media
Often writers ignore who they are writing for; they write complete text giving less notice to what their others have to say about it. Even more social media comments need to be taken seriously enough to alter it totally or be proud of it. Listen to the readers review, ignoring that may get you out of business or out of class.
RSS Feed
