Problogger Diary

Be on a constant run to improve your writing skills. Form is as important as content. You don’t need to be able to write a gripping thriller, but everyone likes to read a well-writtenblog. Grammar and punctuation is one thing—which we’ve already mentioned; maintaining a style is one thing—which also we’ve already mentioned; but the bottomline is, to be famous (which, we’re assuming, is your idealistic ultimate goal), you need to write well.

We can’t teach you how to write well. But when we say “writing well,” we’re referring to such things as twisting phrases to make them more interesting; using language to make a dull topic more approachable; making your posts gripping enough to hold your readers’ attention for at least the span of the post; avoiding cliches and cliched phrases; not going into “lyrical digression”—where the writer increases word count and wastes bandwidth by avoiding the central topic and beating round the bush and only then coming back to the point at hand, as we have done with this phrase.

Good writing is an art, nothing less—it’s as much of an art and skill as playing a musical instrument is. There are several resources on the Internet on how to improve your language and writing skills; a good place to start is www.poynter.org. It’s meant specifically for journalists, but you’ll find there more than a couple of tips on good writing.

We did say form is as important as content, but it works the other way round too—content is as important as form! If you do write well, don’t be under the delusion that that can be your selling point. Not true. No-one these days has the time to read just for pleasure—reading a post of yours should be worth your readers’ while.

A final word: fonts are important. Choose a font in keeping with your content. Avoid horrible fonts like comic sans in any situation!

Posted by Problogger Diary at Friday, April 03, 2009