First Draft #30: a newsletter on public language
30 tips, tricks and rules for better writing
Making and breaking the rules
The shelves at Draft HQ heave with books about writing. We have ancient wisdom (Cicero’s How to Win an Argument) and modern whimsy (Eats, Shoots and Leaves); underappreciated gems (The Sense of Style) and overpraised classics (Politics and the English Language); rollicking polemics (How Mumbo Jumbo Took Over the World) and unthumbed compendiums (The Faber Book of Anecdotes).
The difficulty and mystery of writing make it a tempting subject. But codifying the ways of the pen is a fraught business. Even the most celebrated writing guides tend to break their own rules. Orwell’s Politics and the English Language declares: “never use the passive tense where you can use the active”. Yet the first sentence of that very essay contains a passive construction (“it is generally assumed…”). The Elements of Style, Strunk and White’s famous guide from 1959, warns “Do not overstate” or else “readers will be instantly on guard”. Sounds sensible, until you realise “instantly on guard” is itself an overstatement.
Flashes of hypocrisy do not invalidate the entire enterprise of laying down writing rules. They do, however, hint at the spirit in which such rules should be taken. Someone once joked that all negative book reviews ought to end with “but well done for writing a book”. Similarly, all writing rules should come with the caveat “but any skilled and imaginative writer may make a stylistic virtue of not doing this”.
There is no formula for good writing. Few rules are ironclad and the only way to guarantee improvement is to read and write more often. But there are principles that, if followed most of the time, lower the risk of failure. For the 30th edition of First Draft, our team collected 30 of our favourites. Remember them. Follow them. Occasionally break them. Your readers will thank you. (AD)
THE DRAFT TOP 30
The first sentence is everything. (AE)
Read your work out loud before you submit. You will hear things you don’t see on the page. You will notice repetition, you will stumble over sentences that go on too long, you will sense when the argument meanders, you will bore yourself when you stray from the point. If you find it hard to say, that is because it doesn’t sound like you, and it would be better if it did. Make a mental note as you go then trust your instincts and edit accordingly. (PC)
The aim is never to sound clever. Be clever, then express yourself as simply as you can. Many think writing well means using impressive words that add a veneer of professionalism or sophistication to your work. This misconception tempts people away from “use” and toward “utilise”; away from “improve” and toward “optimise”. Such words make you seem clever the same way spraying Lynx on your unshowered body makes you seem clean. Writing (the kind we do at work, at least) shouldn’t draw attention to its own cleverness. It should be a clear window to clever thoughts. (AD)
Read everything. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism. Just make sure it's good. As PD James says: "bad writing is contagious". (LH)
Close the gap between your spoken language and your written prose. When we commend a writer, we say they are an important voice. As always, the literal account of the metaphor tells us something interesting. Good writing sounds like a human being. Or sounds like someone speaking, rather than the efficient and rapid processing of an artificial intelligence. When you speak you will have a rhythm to your sentences and a vocabulary that will be your own. Try to retain it when you write. If you struggle to do that, speak your work and then transcribe it. Once you have tidied it up you will have a somewhat more formal, somewhat more prosaic version of the way you speak and you will be a better and less generic writer for it. (PC)
If you have to explain a metaphor or simile, then it's useless. The point of figurative language is to make things clearer. (LH)
Interrogate every general phrase and ask if you can specify further. Good writing is precise. When you use a vague word like “impacted” ask yourself what you really mean. Is the impact good or bad? Do you mean improved and, if so, is there any good reason why you cannot say so? When you say there is a “significant” risk, can you quantify it more precisely? You can’t always do so but doing so will always make your writing more interesting. You will start to say exactly what you mean rather than some bland and distanced version of it. (PC)
Omit needless words. The quickest and easiest way to improve your writing is to acquire the habit of rooting out redundant words. If you can delete a word, do. Pithier is always better. (AE)
Never use an exclamation mark if you're over the age of nine. They never really convey the lighthearted note of enthusiasm or surprise you’re probably going for. The textual equivalent of a rictus grin. Or as F Scott Fitzgerald said: “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” (LH)
Cut double verbs. Often, when a sentence lacks crispness, verb congestion is the reason ("we are working to improve…"). Try combining two verbs into one. If you can’t, try rephrasing. (AE)
Writing is personal so be diplomatic. Writing, as well as being a craft, involves a psychological state. There are two aspects to offering criticism to someone about their work. There is the advice itself and then there is the tone it which it is offered. An insensitive critic can undermine an acute observation with poor tone control. If you give someone a good critique which has the effect of undermining the writer’s confidence, the net effect is probably negative. Be diplomatic. Be careful. Tell the truth but be kind. Writers can be precious, because they care and it feels personal. (PC)
Easy on the adverbs. A teacher once told me adverbs are a sign you’ve used the wrong verb. This isn’t always the case. No single verb conveys “unusually early” or “reluctantly paid”. But it’s true that adverbs are often an inelegant fix for imprecise language. When “ran” doesn’t tell us enough, we add “quickly”. When “said” feels too broad, we may append “quietly”. But “raced” or “whispered'' are better. The best writing tends to contain few adverbs. If tempted to use one, at least try to find a single verb instead. (AD)
Rhythm is as important in prose as it is in poetry. If something sounds awkward or stilted when you read it aloud, a reader will likely find it equally difficult to read in their heads. Play around with your syntax, word choice and sentence length until it sounds “right”. Most people have a good instinct for rhythm. (LH)
Limit the number of people involved. You do want good comments from three people who know what they are doing. You do not want comments from ten. It’s not possible to retain the integrity of a text when so many people are swarming around it. For this reason, tracked changes are the work of the devil. These devices make it too easy to comment but most commentators do not take their obligations seriously. They have been asked to comment by their own boss, so they do, and performatively. Even if what they all say is serious and well-intentioned – which is rare – the comments will never add up to a coherent whole. There is no quicker way to silence a clear voice than by submitting it to group commentary in a shared file. Guard your position as the writer-in-chief. (PC)
If you have to go on a tangent to explain what a word or concept means, then you're probably better off finding a simpler word. (LH)
Avoid unclear antecedents. Antecedents are words or phrases to which pronouns refer. The sentence "I left my laptop on the bus and now it’s gone" is ambiguous because the pronoun “it”could refer to either the laptop or the bus. (AE)
Try to ensure that the principal interferes early rather than late. If you are writing for someone else, you need them to engage. The life of the corporate writer is made more difficult by a principal who pays too little attention until it is too late. Or a principal who blithely and thoughtlessly commissions one piece and then realises later that he or she wants something else. The best way to avoid this frustration is to seek the undivided attention of the principal for a detailed outline of the written product, early in the process. That increases the chance that there will be an agreed destination for the work and that it might even be a place that everyone wishes to go. (PC)
Feel free to start sentences with conjunctions. Banish the voice of your primary school teacher. Starting sentences with “and” and “but” isn’t only allowed but encouraged. It makes writing sound urgent and alive. (AE)
Go back and delete your first paragraph. It's generally just a run-up to the actual substance. Necessary for you, but tiresome for your reader. (LH)
Change the place where you write. Thinking, reading and editing in a different location often provokes new thoughts and better words. The formulations you type in a busy office or scribble in a home study take on a different quality on a train, in a coffee shop or (if you want to spot a Draft writer) at the London Library. By the same principle, if you’re straining to explain something succinctly, write a short email or text message to yourself. (JC)
Writing is difficult so give yourself the best chance. Log out of Twitter. Close your tabs. Download an internet blocking app if you need to. You can’t write if you can’t concentrate. (AD)
Don’t use italics for emphasis. It's lazy. If your intended emphasis is unclear without them, then that's a problem with the way you've written it. (LH)
Engross your reader by telling a story. All stories are the same: they establish tension and resolve it. What is true of literature and drama also has relevance to the writing we do at work. Take the opening of this edition of First Draft. It creates tension by setting out a problem with writing guides and resolves it by arguing they are nevertheless useful. Tension makes things interesting. Establish it, resolve it, carry your audience with you. (AD)
Don't be a slave to the "rule of three". Sometimes a list of 2 or 4 works better. “Picture yourself somewhere peaceful – on a white sandy beach or a wildflower meadow” moves along at a better pace than “Picture yourself somewhere peaceful – on a white sandy beach, a wildflower meadow or an evergreen forest”. And “There were all sorts of people there: families, students, professionals and even tourists” conveys a greater sense of scale and range than “There were all sorts of people there: families, students and even tourists.” (LH)
Can’t work out how to finish? Refer back to the striking image in your introduction. Introduction has no striking image? Add one. (AD)
Don’t use alliteration or assonance on purpose. It sounds affected and lame. If you're writing carefully, with attention to the way it sounds and feels, you'll find they emerge naturally. (LH)
Take the -ing out of writing. There is a reason that the -ing form is known as the imperfect tense. It tends to take the drive out of your writing. “Tomorrow we will send the newsletter” is so much more direct than “tomorrow we will be sending the newsletter”. The second flaw is that the -ing form puts distance between subject and action. For example, “Health International is a top philanthropic organisation, developing life-saving treatments for malaria, polio and HIV”. There is a vagueness about who is doing the “developing” here. Better to add a pronoun (“We develop”) and make two clear sentences out of one unwieldy one. (PC)
If you feel like using a comma, an en-dash or a semicolon, then nine times out of 10 a full-stop would be better. We tend to think and speak in long, meandering strands, each idea trailing into the next. That doesn't mean we should write that way. (LH)
Think before you write. A blank page is a frightening thing, so the urge to fill it with something, anything, is understandable. But the rush to solve the immediate problem of not having started a daunting piece of work creates bigger problems later on when you crash into a dead end. Resist the urge to begin before you know what you want to say. The more time spent reading and organising your thoughts, the quicker you will ultimately be. (AD)
Practise.
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