How to Improve your Writing

I am placing in this post some links to articles that give you practical advice about how to improve your writing. Not the "Write 1000 words before breakfast then go for a walk" kind of advice but the actual work on the page kind of advice.


* This is advice on how to show, not tell. Remove your thought verbs. You can do this with a Search function on your page - rewrite every piece that includes the words Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires. Also Love and Hate. Also Is and Has.

https://medium.com/writers-guild/amazing-writing-tip-from-chuck-palahniuk-f5c6070550b9?fbclid=IwAR1QYQuE4AlTw4zgJ07eY6D2ah4xBx60rHuGX_LTMMT7cFsTrYKDZJHYDNs


* This writer has analysed the best beginnings to essays according to his research. There are categories and examples. (By the way, this is the same process that the ancient Greeks and Romans used to create their terms of rhetoric! Collect data. Make categories. Name them.)

https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-great-writing-begins-58e3bbf82137


* This is the same writer on his analysis of the best ways to end an essay. These articles will be particularly helpful when you write reflective or discursive pieces.

https://betterhumans.coach.me/how-great-writing-ends-3c8371378def


* This is advice for creative writers from an academic who teaches a creative writing program and reads works submitted by potential candidates for the program. What are these teachers valuing in the submissions?

https://medium.com/s/story/an-mfa-admissions-officer-on-making-your-writing-stand-out-2af00d71dd06

* A video narrated by Richard Lanham on improving your writing, based on his books. It will help you edit your work, sentence by sentence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpRnAJuy-Ck