Be a pro writer:Learn the craft of writing

Writing, as an essential skill itself, allows you to represent your thoughts and views with clarity and ease to a far larger audience. No doubt that knowing grammar is important to explain a context or to work with a subtle idea. Besides this, there are some important key points to remember for enhancing your writing skill. Ehsanur Raza, Editor of Toggle, shared such tips from his working experience in the Online Workshop of the Economics Study Center (ESC): The Craft of Writing on the 23rd of January.

Be specific when you write

It implies that we need more details or some concrete information to understand better about a particular topic. Writings based on some blanket and vague statements or casual observation cannot attract or fascinate the readers. You need to research thoroughly regardless of what you are writing to make it worthwhile. For example, "Police stopped the car". This is just a simple statement which has nothing in particular to tell you. You can make it better by saying "Police stopped the rusty, blue Toyota". You can also add details about the police, weather or the situation here. Without details, you cannot have a story. And without story we cannot draw your readers' attention. But keep in mind that you should stick to relevant details only.

Choose simple and easy words

Have you ever heard of 'verbiage'? It indicates complicated and lengthy words. Using verbiages should be avoided even in academic journals where difficult words are considered as trendy. Lots of people mistakenly think that they need difficult and complicated words to make a write-up sound important. However, it should be represented in such a way that readers can understand and connect with that. Always use short and simple words and sentences so that people get your story quickly and easily.

Leave out the fluffs

Fluffs are unnecessary details or words in your texts that reduce the impact of your thoughts. There are some common qualifiers in English such as basically, very, little, quite, pretty, normally, usually, etc. A writer should avoid using these qualifiers as they prevent the writing from coming to the main point. Here is a sentence "She was basically quite ready to take on the job". To put directness into this, you can also write as "She was enthusiastic about tackling the job". Comparing these two sentences, you can see that the second one is much stronger way to express the same context.

Don't repeat. Don't say the same thing over and over again. Don't retell or echo the same thought. And don't repeat.

Something we see in different newspaper reports where 345 words have to be filled, but you only have 50 words to say. So you repeat the same details to fulfill the requirement. But it kills the interest. If you ever feel that you don't have enough information or words to be filled, go back to the rule number one. Be specific, look for more details thoroughly and add relevant information if possible. Don't repeat unnecessarily as it instantly causes people to skim and move on. You can use photos, graphs or infographics depending on what type of writing you are working on, when there is a lack of words.

Edit mercilessly

A good write-up requires proper editing, or to say drastic and massive chopping. Read your own write-up minutely and cut down redundant details once you have finished. The best way to do this is to leave it aside for a few hours or a day. Because when we write a piece, we think about it in a same way for a while. But after a break, we begin to spot mistakes and improvements in the same writing with our fresh eyes.

The best ways to brainstorm and improve your style

Read widely. Read outside your comfort zone. Thanks to the accessibility of the internet that we have the chance to explore different topics. Find out your field of interest. If you have any basic idea about a definite topic, look for sources of information to take some inspiration from there. In case you want to write on something about which you have less or no idea, take an expert's advice. This will make your write-up enlightening for the readers. And always look for different genres and medium. Try fiction of different types. Read technical material. Read comics to get examples of informal and conversational styles. Just reading your Facebook Newsfeed isn't reading at all.

In short, a writer needs to have all the information and then write. Write concisely, leave it for a while and edit to chop out unnecessary bits and pieces. To develop styles, read everything. Even if it is only the label of a soap packet and you are sitting on the toilet.