How To Improve Your Writing Skills

Writing to some is the physical printing of thoughts, giving a literary form to the mind’s imagination and providing a universal language to concepts, opinions and ideas. But not many realize that writing is actually a delightful art, defined as a galaxy of divergence, which to understand even an eternity wouldn’t suffice.

But we always have time to improve and get better with every piece of writing. And as a fuel for improvement, there are certain exercises that could be followed for efficient development in skill.

Writer Henneke describes learning writing similar to learning cooking. Henneke tells us how, in order to improve one’s writing skills, he/she has to master different mini-skills first. Henneke puts forth nine techniques that represent 9 mini skills one has to master for betterment in their writing.

1. Learn how to write good sentences- a sparkling sentence is the basic ingredient of good writing.

2. Become more conversational by including questions in your writing.

3. Study how to choose flavoured words and vocabulary, and learn how to avoid bland phrases that make your writing tasteless and disgusting.

4. Compose smooth transitions so readers glide from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph.

5. Experiment with your voice by changing punctuation and adding a dynamic rhythm.

6. Create a mesmerizing flow by outlining or reverse outlining your content.

7. Practice writing soundbites that linger in your reader’s minds.

8. Cook up fresh metaphors to make abstract concepts concrete and entertaining.

9. Play with mini stories and relatable contexts to engage your readers.

You’re also required to develop quite some daily habits that would improve your writing skills without you realizing that you’re making an effort.

1. Glance through newspaper or read inshorts every day.

2. Pick up an interesting magazine and flip through it, you’ll understand the natural flow in writing and the diversity in vocabulary usage.

3. Read books. It could be anything ranging from fiction novels, biographies, comics or non-fiction novels.

4. Do crosswords to improve your vocabulary range.

5. Start a blog and make it a habit to write at least 3 articles a week. The more you a write, the more you identify and correct your flaws.

6. Involve in conversations. Listen first. Identify the difference in speech of different people and compare it with yours. It’ll help you identify your range in grammatical accuracy and efficiency in choosing words.

7. Last but not least, try to learn from mistakes. Read. Learn. Wherever, whenever, even if there’s a product advertisement on a bus, read. Analyse. See what can be made better about it or how you would’ve written about it.

Writing is a skill that cannot be mastered, because it is as vast as the sky and all we can do is to put in effort and determination to improve and develop and get down the road as far as possible.