Techniques To Be A Better Writer

September 1, 2011

Interview with Sandra Lamb, author of the book How to Write It: Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write

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Mike Carruthers:
Have you ever had to write something and had trouble saying what it is that you want to say? Well, here’s some help

Sandra Lamb:
Think through your message all the way from beginning to end and be able to state what you are going to write in 1 message sentence.
 

Sandra Lamb, author of the book How to Write It: Complete Guide to Everything You'll Ever Write

That whole process makes us think through what we want to say and get it to actually distill into one simple statement. And that really works wonders when it comes to beginning to write.

Being concise will make your writing much clearer so Sandra says it’s best to use fewer and simpler words when you can.

Instead of exemplify you want to use maybe show. Exhibits a tendency to - you could use; tends, facilitate, help. Few in number – few – just getting it down to its clearest and most simple form often aids the reader immensely. 

And it can really help to walk away from what you’ve written and come back to it later.

To disengage yourself from it because often that’s the problem we get so engaged that we can’t stop. And if we give ourselves that breathing space then we go back often it will be very clear. And there’s one more trick after that if we read it aloud we can often hear what we couldn’t detect when we’re just reading it.
 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here