Article by Yeo Teck Wei
The basics of good writing
I regularly have people asking me how to write well. To be honest, I also don’t have the standard answer. But I do have some tips that I can share, and maybe that can shed some light on the basics of good writing.
Preparation phase1. Who is your target audience? 2. Why are you writing for this audience?3. What is the nature of the writing? (narrative, argumentative, expository etc.) 4. What are the key points in your writing?5. Which are your supporting documents?
You must have all the answers to these questions before you begin your first draft. By this way, at least you will feel more confident to start and respond to any challenges later in the writing (i.e. writer’s block).
Plotting & Writing phase
Write it such that when you read it aloud, people want to read it. Good marketers will tell you that there is the secret to basic advertising. The greatest difference between essays wrote in school, and essays wrote for business is that while teachers are often forced to be the audience for the former, the later does not have a fixed audience; the corporate writer must instead make people feel interested to read his article. If there is no audience, then any piece of writing, no matter how brilliant was the analysis or style, it has lost its purpose. You can do this by knowing your target audience well, and then think in their shoes; what would attract them the most? Finally, fine spray your articles with the keywords and ideas specially crafted for your audience. Always put your audience in the first place when you write.
Always eliminate unnecessary words. This is to prevent repetition and refrain from making the reader think that he is wasting his time to read this essay. An ideal article would be such that the original meaning was conveyed to the reader, not one more word could be added nor taken off from the article.
Never stop. If you ever experience writer’s block, always carry on writing and not think about it. If the problem gets worse instead, try this method I always use: Forget about the opening, write down all your main points first. Then visualise clearly in your mind the human body with all its bones, blood and flesh. Now imagine the key points are your bones; all you have to do now is to flesh out the bones, that is to further develop and elaborate on the key points. Keep on writing until all the points have been fully explained. Now you should be very sure of your opening and ending, and then add these sections in. Bingo! Your essay is done. Writing, is as simple as putting Lego bricks together.
Lastly, always edit and proof read your drafts. No masterpiece was finished by the first try. Even professionals must do several drafts, before they settled on one. Editing is extremely useful because not only can you experiment different styles of writing, but also you get to correct all your errors more effectively.
Hopefully, with these tips you can write even better. If you have better suggestions, send me a mail too. Thanks and happy writing!
Yeo Teck Wei is a freelance writer based in Singapore and currently the blogger of The Paper Model. For more information, please visit the-papermodel.blogspot.com. Any comments to my articles are appreciated.
