Inculcating good writing habits

It’s not possible to improve your writing overnight, unless you hire an expert to do it for you. There might be some quick tricks and shortcuts you can pick up and apply immediately, but these only improve your writing in small increments. If you want to become a good writer, be prepared to make a long-term commitment to the craft.

It might take time and energy to improve your writing, but it’s actually not that hard, especially if you love what you do. Adopt good writing practices to ensure that your writing is constantly improving. Below you’ll find a list of essential writing habits that will benefit your writing skills. Try introducing one habit into your routine each month. By the end of the year, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an expert in all things writing.

Be professional

If you want to be a professional writer, then act like one. Whether you’re sending a submission for a school magazine or leaving a comment on a blog, always check your work.

Practice makes perfect

It goes without saying that if you don’t ever bother writing, your writing will never get any better. Set aside fifteen to twenty minutes a day and make writing part of your daily routine. Whether you write for three hours a day or fifteen minutes a day, daily writing is the most critical of writing habits. If you can establish a daily writing schedule with longer sessions on weekends then it would help you even better.

Use literary devices

Nuances differentiate good writing from great writing. When you understand literary devices and how they strengthen a piece of writing, you can use them to improve your writing.

Read

To write well, one must read. There are no exceptions to this one. A writer does two things above all else: reads and writes. Lack of reading will be apparent in every sentence. The importance of reading cannot be overstated: read as much and as often as you can.

Invest in your writing

Buy some books on style and grammar. Get a special notebook or a fancy pen. Pick up some writing software. Start building a library.

Get your tools and resources in order

Writers don’t need a lot of tools, but they definitely need something to write with, whether it’s a fancy computer or a cheap pad of paper and a disposable pen. Make sure you have any necessary resources on hand too, like style guides, dictionaries, and encyclopedia (most of these resources are available for free online).

Get inspired

Sometimes inspiration strikes when you least expect it. With practice, you can learn how to foster creativity and generate ideas that will keep you busy writing.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

If you’re always getting hung up on every little mistake and stopping your flow of ideas to repair typos and awkward sentences, you’ll wear yourself out (and lose a lot of great ideas in the process). Write now and edit to improve your writing later.

But later, make sure you do edit

There’s no excuse for putting messy writing out there into the world. A rough draft is meant for your eyes only (and sometimes, a couple of select alpha readers). Polish your stuff before you show it around. Nothing will improve your writing more immediately than the simple act of polishing it.

Pay attention to detail

You’ve heard the saying: it’s all in the details. Give your readers enough details that they can visualise what you’re communicating but not so many details that they’re bored with too much description.

Look it up

Not sure which punctuation mark to use? Curious about whether your sentence is properly constructed? Instead of rewriting to escape the tedious task of researching the rule, take five minutes and look it up.

Be consistent

If you use the serial comma, make sure you always use it (not just when you feel like it). Don’t switch from plural to singular in the middle of a paragraph. Don’t change tense in the middle of a story. Want help with consistency? Pick up a style guide.

Be clear and concise

If your message or idea is getting lost in superfluous, fancy words and language, you won’t be able to communicate with people — at best, you’ll only be able to communicate with the elite few who are fluent in fancy talk. Clear, concise words beat big, fancy words every time.

Check your facts

There’s plenty of room for creativity in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, but there are also times when you have to get your facts right.

Stay on topic

We’ve all read pieces of writing that strayed off on some tangent. The writer probably intended to connect that tangent to the main idea, but somehow the connection was never made. Cut that stuff out and the writing will improve drastically. Make sure your final draft sticks with the topic or the main plot.

Take breaks

Whether you’re writing a 1000-word blog post or a 100,000-word novel, you have to take breaks sometimes. During a long writing session, take a break to stretch. During a long writing project, take breaks to clear your head, gain perspective, and get your bearings.

Expand your vocabulary

We writers love to gush over notebooks and pens, but the real tools of our trade are words. Learn as many as you can. Use them wisely.

Know yourself and be yourself

As you gain experience with writing, you’ll find some strategies that work for you and others that don’t. Find which writing process is best for you and then stick to it. And above all, write from your heart. Disinterest will show, so write what moves you, what feels honest and right.

Finish what you start

One of the worst habits a writer can acquire is to never finish anything. Shiny new ideas are always tempting us away from our current projects. Don’t give in to temptation! Unless a project is absolutely going nowhere, wrap it up before you move on to the next one. Otherwise, you’ll end up in a vicious cycle and have nothing to show for all the writing you’ve done.

Show your work

Speaking of finishing what you start — once it’s done, share it with others. Post a scene on your blog, send a poem around to a few friends, round up some beta readers and let them assess your project and help you improve it. And if you’d like to be a professional author, always keep your eye on the goal: publishing your work to the marketplace.

Know your craft and industry

As a writer, it’s important to understand things like grammar, spelling, and punctuation as well as the importance of editing and polishing your work before you show it around. It’s just as important to familiarise yourself with the industry — from publishing to marketing. Make it your business to understand the craft and trade by working good habits into your schedule: edit everything you write, consult grammar and style guides when necessary, learn to properly format your documents, study the publishing industry, and make sure you understand the many ways that authors can market their work to a reading audience.

There’s only one way to become a better writer, and that is through lots of practice. Some people are born with talent. Writing comes easily to them, but even the most talented writers have to work at the craft. After all, nobody’s born knowing how to write.

Fostering good writing habits accomplishes two things. First, good writing habits ensure that you write regularly, and as we all know, the only way to become a writer is to actually get the writing done. Second, by writing regularly, you get plenty of writing practice, and your work improves. In other words, good writing habits are essential.

Source: goalsettingforsuccess.org