Five Tips For Improving Readability

Style guides from Strunk and White's Elements of Style to the snarkily updated Spunk & Bite impress readers with their own hard-fought insights into improving one's writing. Most of the tips and tricks that I have developed over the years can be compressed into one statement:

Write like you have something to say, not like you have something to prove.

1. Write modestly. Even if you are an expert in your field, you are not the only expert, and there will be others who disagree with you and will be better than you at expressing their disagreement. Approaching your own writing as if it's not going to be the end-all be-all word on the topic in hand will affect your tone positively. "Modesty" is a matter of tone. If you write like you have something to prove, you will sound under-confident --- as if a proof-toned style is an attempt to obscure a deficiency in substance. When you are trying to communicate a point of great substance, do so clearly, efficiently, and without frills.

2. Frills don't fool readers. To write cleverly is to write clearly about clever ideas, not to dress up a pedestrian point with spunky and bitey frills. Readers see the dressing up for what it is; write as if your readers want to read substantial ideas and you will attract those readers. Write like you have something to say.

3. Pacing. Vary your sentence structures. If every sentence has the same basic construction, your writing becomes difficult to read. The same goes for paragraphs. If you construct every paragraph to have a topic sentence, three items of support, and a concluding sentence, you will lose your readers' interests quickly. Imagine if someone talked to you in either of these ways. The conversation would be unbearable. Imagine that you are in a one-sided conversation with your reader; keep your interlocutor engaged.

4. Structure, structure, structure. It takes a very skilled writer to simply type into a blank screen. Are you that skilled of a writer? (If you answer yes, refer to point 1 above.) You need to have an overall plan for the piece, as well as a plan for each paragraph and transition, as well as a plan for each sentence. And you need to consider how each paragraph contributes to the whole piece, and how each sentence contributes to the paragraph as well as the piece, and so on. This is related to pacing: keep the story and the characters developing or you will lose your readers' attention. (This applies as much to a business memo as it does to a mystery novel.)

5. Hooks. Personal feelings make poor hooks. A paragraph that starts with a personal feeling is often an unplanned paragraph, and good readers feel the unplanned-ness of this kind of writing. Paragraphs that feel like they're taking shape as they proceed were not written with a shape in mind. Give your reader a reason to read this paragraph. Give it a good hook. Frame an image that will play out over the course of the paragraph or the piece. Are you assigning a feeling to your reader, or are you getting your reader to feel with you? Do the latter.

These are basic style points that I think about when constructing essays, articles, blog posts, or what-have-you. (Lists are less structured, which is probably why they have become so popular in a fast-paced Internet writing market. But there is still structure, pacing, and reader interest to consider.) At any time, any of these tips should be abandoned if they appear to jeopardize your work. Tips are not laws. Take them as such.