Improve Your Writing Style and Skills

Hello readers. Here we go again with some benificial tips to be a good writer. The point is to satisfy our reader to keep an eye and concerntrate on our shared story untill the end.

It would be a shame to bring an entire project to halt just because you didn't know how to spell gyroscope or schnapps. So get a dictionary and keep it on your desk where you write, no more than an arm's length away. In fact, get two. Get a hard cover for its comprehensiveness and a paperback for convenience. Also, why not you get an encyclopedia. If you can,t afford a big set, get a single volume encyclopedia. For additional, get a thesaurus. Thesaurus means "treasury"; the thesaurus you buy will be a treasury of synonyms, words that are close in meaning to the one you want. It is a book that will lead you to that perfect word you know is loitering on the outskirts of your brain.

After you have acquired a dictionary, an encyclopedia, and a thesaurus, you can acquire other reference books as time, taste, and money allow ;) Their importance depends largely on what sort of writing you do and how much. Expand your vocabulary!!! Everybody has heard tips for improving vocabulary. Learn a new word in the morning and use it three times before sunset and it's yours, etc. There are many books or online references that will help you stretch your vocabulary.

But the most important vocabulary for the writer is not the one that will take in uxorious tomorrow and soubrette the next day. It's the one he or she already has. For the writer of average intelligence and education, learning to use easily the words he or she already knows. Think for a minute. How many synonyms can you come up with the noun "plan"? There are program, itinerary, scheme, design, agenda, outline, and blueprint.

If you concentrated for a minute, you might have come up with ten words that you already knew. But how many of them would have come easily to mind while you were writing a letter to the boss about your potentially lucrative new… uh… plan?  The only way to make your vocabulary more accessible is to use it. If you want all those short but interesting words waiting at the front of your brain when you need them, you must move them to the front of your brain before you need them.

Stop thinking about other word possibilities when you write, and eventually they will come so quickly that you won't have to stop. Pause before you speak, then insert some of those good but neglected words. And when you drive or walk home from school or work, pick out an object along the road and see how many synonyms you can think as before you pass it. There's a house over there but it's also a dwelling, an abode, a building, a bungalow, perhaps, or maybe a cottage. It's a home for somebody, it's a headquarters for a family, and it's a shelter and a structure, etc.

To be continued...

"If it dosn't fit, use a larger hammer"

Comments