After writing for publication for fifty years, I’ve discovered several valuable rules to follow. Here are six of them.
I’ve done a lot of writing over the past fifty years: one PhD thesis, fourteen books, and more than 400 articles on a wide variety of topics. It’s not for me to say whether I’m a good writer, but I have acquired some useful practices along the way. Here are six rules that help me be a more effective writer. They might help you, too.
Rule #1: Heed the Little Voice
Either as I’m writing or when I’m reviewing something I’ve written, I will occasionally hear a little nagging voice in my head (just one voice, fortunately). It says, “That part doesn’t work. Fix it or cut it out.”
I used to reply to myself, “Let’s leave it there and see how the reviewers feel about it.” My outside reviewers invariably spotted that bit, and they invariably hated it. I’ve learned to trust that internal message and fix the awkward chunk right away. The little voice in my head hasn’t been wrong yet.
Rule #2: Deliver on the Title
We’ve all been taken in by eye-catching, intriguing titles that are nothing but clickbait. We waste time reading the article, hoping that somewhere, eventually, we’ll see the message the captivating title promised, but we never do. It’s highly annoying.
I believe in truth in advertising. I try to craft titles and subtitles that are both inviting and accurate. The audience has a right to know what to expect, and the author has a responsibility to deliver.
The same applies when giving presentations. I’ve attended more than one talk in which the content didn’t fulfill the title’s promise. Suppose the title is “Conjugating Verbs in Swahili,” but the material presented misses the mark. At the end of the talk, a disappointed attendee asks, “Are you going to say anything about conjugating verbs in Swahili?” Awkward.
With articles and blog posts, the author doesn’t immediately feel the reader’s annoyance when they don’t meet expectations based on the title. It’s there, though; you might see that feedback in reader comments. It’s not fair to your readers to entice their eyeballs and time and then take them in a different direction. Use the title to tell them what you’re going to tell them, and then make sure you do.
Rule #3: Keep It Focused
It’s important to have some threads of continuity or themes running through any article or book. Tie all sections of the piece back to those themes, both to make sure that your content is on message and to keep reinforcing those key themes to the reader. You might be tempted to incorporate other material that intrigues you, but if it doesn’t align with one of your themes, perhaps it doesn’t belong there.
Sometimes, I’ll put a few bullets at the top of a new article or book chapter to help me clarify the core messages I wish to impart. I refer to those bullets as I write to ensure I stay focused on my goals. When I’m done drafting and am confident that I’ve delivered on my topic and haven’t strayed off into the weeds, I can delete the bullets. They’ve served their purpose of keeping me on track.
When I review other authors’ manuscripts, it sometimes seems as though they’ve thrown in every thought, idea, and experience they’re excited about, regardless of how well it fits with the mission for the piece. Worse, sometimes they don’t adequately address what I think are the central topics they’re writing about. That enthusiastic distraction is an easy trap to fall into.
Rule #4: Keep It Simple
Readers enjoy writing that they don’t have to work hard to understand. They appreciate clearly explained and thought-provoking concepts, examples, and opinions. Readers love direct, simple tutorials that teach techniques they can apply immediately. If a reader must make multiple passes through a paragraph to figure out the author’s point, something’s wrong.
I was educated as a chemist. Scientists neither write nor speak like normal people. When I began writing on other topics, it took some effort to revamp my writing style to be more accessible. I’ve tried to cultivate a simple and conversational writing style, even for my many books and articles on software engineering.
Some authors write as though they want their readers to know how smart they are, using big words, long paragraphs, and elaborate phrasing. Nobody cares how smart you are. They only care if you’re interesting or helpful.
Shorter words, sentences, and paragraphs all enhance readability. I aim for an average of fewer than twenty words per sentence. Three or four sentences per paragraph is best for online material. Print material can accommodate somewhat longer paragraphs and remain readable, but still, hit that new paragraph key once in a while (not after every period, please, like I see in some Medium stories).
I use Microsoft Word’s grammar statistics to help keep my writing readable. I aim for a grade level of 8 to 9 for nontechnical articles and no higher than grade 12 for technical writing. Another readability measure is the Flesch Reading Ease index; I try for a score of at least 40, higher for casual writing. If the statistics on a draft don’t meet my standards, I revise the piece until they do.
Also, keep the number of passive sentences low. Sentences written in the active voice, where you can tell what entity is taking an action, are more direct and easier to understand than passive sentences. Switching from passive to active voice was one of the transitions I had to make when unlearning my original scientific writing style. And avoid double and triple negatives. They’re too hard to unravel.
For the sake of reference, here are some readability statistics for this article:
Average sentences per paragraph: 3.1
Average words per sentence: 15.1
Flesch Reading Ease index: 63.2
Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 7.9
Percent passive sentences: 3.3
I’ve received several compliments on my writing that meant a lot to me. Long ago, I authored a column of computer magazine tutorials on assembly language programming — not the simplest topic. One reader told me, “When I work through your articles, I feel like you’re standing there explaining them to me.” That’s exactly the reaction I was hoping for.
One of the highest compliments I ever got was, “You don’t write like you have a PhD.” I was most pleased.
Rule #5: Wait a Day
The first quality improvement activity for anything I’ve written is my own critical review. After writing a new article, book chapter, or blog post, I set it aside for a full day before I review it. If I re-read something immediately after writing it, I’m not really reviewing it — I’m mentally reciting it. Letting my memory of the piece decay for a while lets me look at it with fresher, less biased eyes.
After that pause, sometimes I’ll notice sentences that make me wonder what in the world I was thinking when I wrote them. I’ll detect points that weren’t as strongly made as I’d like, as well as others that I had beaten to death. I might see problems with continuity, flow, and sequence; redundancies; inconsistencies of tense and person; grammatical errors and typos; and opportunities for better word choices. That brief one-day delay makes many shortcomings jump out at me.
Rule #6: Remove One Hundred Words
Being naturally wordy, I use a little technique to tighten my writing. Each time I make a review or edit pass through an article or a chapter of a few thousand words, I try to remove one hundred words. For a shorter piece, say 1500 words or so, I might try to remove fifty on each pass.
I don’t always achieve that goal. Nonetheless, a constant focus on tightening helps me deliver the maximum value per sentence to the time-strapped reader. You’d be surprised at how much you can take out and still say everything you want.
The Human Touch
I’ve found that following these writing rules helps me produce higher-quality articles and books than I might otherwise. With a little practice, they’ll quickly become second nature, just a part of your natural writing process.
Maybe you think AI will turn your writing into magical text. As I enjoy the whole writing process (except book indexing, which is horrible), I would no more use AI to do some of my writing than I would outsource my wine tasting. Other than automated grammar checking, I’ll stick with crafting my stories one word at a time, keeping these six writing rules in mind.
