Is your writing full of fluff, idioms, non-essential phrases, complex sentences, and more? You’re not alone. High school and college assignments have encouraged people to write to fill the word count, not to convey their ideas concisely. However, if you’re writing for marketing, you want your writing to be short and punchy. But how do you do that?
It’s not as hard as you’d think. Follow these 8 tips to break old writing habits and cut back on scholarly writing routines.
1. Find Your Writing Style Do’s and Don’ts
Just like art, everyone has a writing style. There are things you might do that adds to your word count and makes your writing weaker. Some of the things I do are:
- Start too many sentences with “However”
- Write sentences like: Not only does it do this, but it does that too
- Use filler adverbs like very, really, and extremely
- Incorporate phrases like “In order to… .“ “It’s important to,” and “Make sure to…” that don’t change the meaning of the sentence.
How Do You Solve This?
First, you have to build your list. A good way to find your own list is to have someone else read your work. If you don’t have someone to show your work to, read what you’ve written out loud. This forces you to slow down and listen to the flow of your writing. It can also help you pinpoint those redundancies or repeated mistakes.
Once you have your list built, look for them. You don’t have to do it yourself, as tools like “find” on Google docs can help you. For example, I always look for every instance of “very” before I’ve published a piece.
2. Know the Difference Between Active and Passive Voice
This tip isn’t “avoid passive voice.” Instead, it’s an understanding of when you should or when you shouldn’t use active voice to shorten your sentences. What is passive and why is it such a big deal? Passive voice is:
Object acted upon by subject
While active voice is:
Subject acts upon object
Here’s the rule:
- If the subject is more important, use active voice.
- If the object is more important, use passive voice.
Take this example:
“A study by your source found this statistic.”
“Your source found this statistic.”
Do you see how much more direct that is? Another commonly misused space where active voice is powerful comes with directions!
A passive direction might look like something like: “The nail should be placed in this hole.” If you shift that to active voice, your sentence is “Place the nail in this hole.” It’s more direct, active, and easier to understand.
If you don’t have experience finding instances of passive voice, move to tip three.
3. Use a Tool
Free apps like the Hemingway app and Grammarly are useful. Use them. You’re not bad at writing if you need to use a tool. you shouldn’t feel bad using a tool to tighten up your writing.
Hemingway App points out your lengthy sentences, uses of passive voice, and adverbs.
While you shouldn’t make the changes it suggests blindly, it CAN help you find sentences you might want to consider breaking down into two.
4. Avoid cliches
While I do use cliches in my writing, I do my best to use them sparingly. If there are ways you can be more direct and avoid idioms or cliches, do it. Some reasons you should avoid cliches are:
- It makes your writing easier to translate. If you expect to use your writing in an international setting, idioms don’t translate well, so avoid them.
- Your writing is easier to understand. I don’t know the meaning of every idiom, and it might make it harder for someone to read your work if they can’t pull the meaning of the idiom from the context.
That’s not to say you should never use cliches and idioms. Cliches are a good way to write the way you talk. However, there are common words and phrases that are used in many marketing materials. These are phrases like:
- State of the art
- Top of the line
- High quality
- Innovative
Instead of describing your product as state of the art, focus on explaining why it’s considered state of the art.
5. Use Lists and Break Up Paragraphs
While this isn’t true of all platforms, if you’re writing in a digital or online space, take advantage of formatting options!
An easy way to skim is to read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. When I’m reading someone else’s work, I always read until I find the next topic, then add a line break. By doing this, I can identify which topics need further context, or where I might have repeated myself and can cut back.
6. Cut Your First Paragraph
Sometimes, you just try too hard to add context to your piece that you end up with two introductions when you only need one. A good way to determine whether or not All the context you tried to add in the first place can more often than not just remove the entire first paragraph and it won’t lessen the impact of your piece.
Read your whole piece with and without your first paragraph. Does it change the meaning of your writing at all? If not, you might have two intros and you can pick and choose which one should make the final cut.
7. Remove Redundancies
Have you ever written a sentence like, “He was shocked and surprised at the result.” Or, if you’re writing for a business, you might find yourself writing for something like “We are empathetic and understanding of the situation.”
For both of those examples, you can remove one or the other. You can be shocked or surprised, depending on what fits the mood better. You don’t need to be both. Empathetic and understanding can also be used interchangeably.
8. Word Choice Matters
I think I saw a poster in an English class once, and it stuck with me. It said something like, “There are so many better ways to say you’re sad.” Then, the poster had a number of stronger adjectives/synonyms for sad.
How does this tighten up your writing? People often use adverbs to emphasize the action or adjective. But, why use two words when you can just use one? Instead of saying, “She was extremely sad,” try a sentence like, “She was devastated.” Depending on the emotion you’re trying to convey, this is not only shorter, but conveys a clearer emotion.
What Are Your Favorite Tips?
I’ll be honest, I didn’t come up with all of these tips myself. I got inspired by the book Everybody Writes by Ann Hadley (not a sponsor) and a few articles in Copyblogger like this one. Good writing takes practice, but you have to read and learn too. What are your favorite tips or resources to get more tips?
It's Becky Rebecca 