Like I stated in my initial article, Added Writing Tips, my aim is primarily to help novice writers looking to establish themselves. You may decide to join the ranks of freelance writers or just be a regular mainstream writer. The choice is yours. However, even more established and experienced writers would find that my Added Writing Tips might still hold a tip or two to better their literary skill. The trick here is to find out how best to express your individuality. This is what distincts a professional writer from a common one. A professional writer should find freedom in self-expression; this comes naturally using the right tools and techniques.
Simple Diction
For most fledgling writers, the temptation to impress is a burning desire. Witty and well-formed ideas are usually tainted by too long phrases, words specifically selected to bamboozle their readers. The result is a literary piece in which the idea is blurred in the obscurity of a barrage of colossal words.
This I must say is highly unnecessary because it defeats being concise. It is like looking at a diamond of low quality. It is murky, like looking through a hazy glass. Yet, it is still a diamond. The clearer your literary piece without the excessive use of verbose words the better. Readers appreciate any work that is easy to understand. Do not make them loose sight of the central idea. You should sustain the reader's train of thoughts while not disjointedly interrupted them. It will be easier for your literary talent and professionalism to be appreciated. A simple and straight to the point literary piece is appealing, it reaches out at readers from the print of your write-up.
You do not have to force the horse to drink once you take it to the river. Good readers (and let me assure you, there are good readers and poor ones) are always thirsty for good writing.
Don't go over board with your diction. You even stand a lesser risk of running into a fix. A sentence should contain at best a single clause. For a fledgling writer, any more and you stand the risk of loosing yourself and your reader. Know exactly what you want to say and simply write it.
You should keep in mind that not every reader is a professor or has an MSC in English or English literature.
Have it mind that it takes very little to discourage a reader, especially on the Internet. You would want your ideas to be straight forward and interestingly captivating. Under this circumstance, the idea is not to carry a gun to a knife fight. Imagine how distracting it would be for some one on his computer constantly breaking to make reference to a dictionary.
Flowing Thoughts
Another mistake I have noticed fledging writers make is distracting or interrupting their own writing flow. This is in line with the first mistake. In fact they are so linked that the former leads to the latter.
What they do is to keep a dictionary by their side and while writing, make constant trips to the dictionary and lift heavy words to substitute simpler words and phrases. Just as it is important to maintain a flowing write-up that does not distract your reader, your constant trips to consult a dictionary are equally distracting. Maintain a flowing train of thoughts. To know how to achieve this, just read on.
Good Memory
Can you remember how it feels when an idea with great potential pops into your mind? Remember how you toy with it? You view it from all angles possible until suddenly you realize… eureka! You quickly pick up your pen and blast your guns away. Remember?
If you have ever had this feeling then it would not be news when I tell you that it can be slightly euphoric. If you are a fledging writer, this moment is like a big bang. As soon as the idea goes supernova, you pick up your pen and before you know it, you are quickly lost in your idea. First, it's the introduction, a body you can't recall, a conclusion you didn't plan for and then the final period. On reading it, you discover that the presentation of the ideas in your write-up are somewhat disjointed.
Here is the tip. To maintain a flowing train of thoughts, why not be practical and first of all decisively jot down your ideas as they come to you. Not that you may not have a good memory, but it makes your work a whole lot easier if they are initially jotted down in little points and notes. This gives you the option to later sit back and decide how best they would fit in a flowing, unbroken stream of thoughts. This saves you the trouble of rushing into a literary web of words in which the ideas are all tangled and convoluted.
