Notes on effective writing
In my live writing workshops, I tell people to “avoid common expressions.” Idioms are fun and useful when speaking, but when they sneak their way into our writing, they weaken it.
The trouble with writing “get your ducks in a row” is that very few people have ever touched a duck. If they have touched ducks, they weren’t arranging them in rows. While this expression may be useful as shorthand in conversation, it doesn’t work well in writing because no one is imagining ducks or rows when they read it. Instead, they’re imagining their old HR Manager who said that phrase a hundred times while live-streaming a spreadsheet. Not the picture you were hoping for, is it?
The first challenge of writing is this: can you trim the weeds around the flowers? You have something good to say. But you also have a lot else to say that crowds and suffocates your good idea. As you write more, you’ll understand all the unnecessary, unhelpful words that you don’t need to use.
The second challenge of writing is this: are the flowers you’re growing your reader’s favorite? This the point when you decide if the words you’re using, and the way you use them, will connect with your audience. This is where cutting out common expressions also helps.
The goal of any piece of writing is to move somebody, whether emotionally with a piece of creative prose, or literally by inspiring them to purchase your products. When people read things that create vivid pictures in their minds, that feel they are written for them, they’re moved.
