Advice for Writers

What is the best advice for writers? Good advice can come from lots of different places, but it's what rings true to you that matters most.

"Read a lot, write a lot." - Stephen King, On Writing (Pocket, 2001)

King's advice is succinct, clear, hard to forget, and most of all, it rings true. To be a serious writer, King says, you should do these two things above all others.

Must You Always Write in Complete Sentences?

No way! However, complete sentences offer real value. To be complete, a sentence must have a noun, a verb, and punctuation. I write. Sally sits. Bobby bounces. Should you choose to deviate from this path of noun-verb-punctuation, do so only as a master of grammar. As William Strunk, the writing style guru, put it, "Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules." And as Stephen King in On Writing replied, "If you don't have a rudimentary grasp of how the parts of speech translate into coherent sentences, how can you be certain you are doing well?" Language is wonderfully flexible. An incomplete sentence can be as powerful as a complete one, but know that you have to master the rules first before you break them.

Caveat: Of almost equal importance is the medium. There are many mediums—technical reports are one—where complete sentences are not only the norm but are also best suited to the material and the audience. But that's a discussion for another day.

Read more on a similar topic from one of my earlier blog posts: Writing with Style: Rules vs. Folklore.

Writing with Style: Rules vs. Folklore

"Distinguish real grammatical rules from folklore." - Joseph M. Williams' #1 principle for writing clearly.

There's a real difference between what we learn in high school English class and what we do in real life. In high school essays, we are taught to never begin a sentence with the words "and" or "but," never use a contraction, never use the word "thing," never write using the words "we" and "you," and to always remember to not place a comma before the conjunction in a simple series.

Wait a minute. I was taught to put a comma before the conjunction. And do you know what, sometimes I like starting a sentence with a conjunction! Williams' advice never held so much truth. In fact, we're crossing into the land of re-considering what you learned in grade school to arrive at a different truth--that once you're an expert in the rules of writing, you can refine and manipulate them in order to be a successful communicator. You may have learned one rule in fifth grade and another in ninth, but it's up to you and your style guide to select the proper one based on the overall picture. If you've analyzed the context; the concept; the who, what, when, where, and why; and arrived at the conclusion that you are going to write the piece using the word "you," then go into it with confidence.