Just Write!

The first commandment of good writing is... to just write! Yep, there is no process to go through, no courses to get through, no moment of inspiration that will strike you all of a sudden. The important thing to remember here is that you are putting your thoughts to paper (or whatever app you use), and getting them out of your head and onto a paper or a document is the first step.

Here, we will look at some important steps to structure your writing better.

1. Put everything in your first draft. Do not edit while writing your first draft. Put all your thoughts on the topic down. 
2. Try this hack for structuring your content: Write blocks of content, of one paragraph each, on each of the points you want to elaborate upon. Number these paragraphs 1, 2, 3, etc. You can then move these blocks around to create a visual structure of how you want your content to flow.
   

   Here is a real-life example of how Nobel-Prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro uses this technique in his writing: I have two desks. One has a writing slope and the other has a computer on it. The computer dates from 1996. It’s not connected to the Internet. I prefer to work by pen on my writing slope for the initial drafts. I want it to be more or less illegible to anyone apart from myself. The rough draft is a big mess. I pay no attention to anything to do with style or coherence. I just need to get everything down on paper. If I’m suddenly struck by a new idea that doesn’t fit with what’s gone before, I’ll still put it in. I just make a note to go back and sort it all out later. Then I plan the whole thing out from that. I number sections and move them around. By the time I write my next draft, I have a clearer idea of where I’m going. This time round, I write much more carefully. . . . I rarely go beyond the third draft. Having said that, there are individual passages that I’ve had to write over and over again. —from an interview with The Paris Review.

3. Use active voice as much as possible. It suggests action and keeps the reader engaged.
   

   Active Voice:

   • The subject of the sentence does the action.
   • Example: "The dog chased the cat."

   Passive Voice:

   • The subject of the sentence receives the action.
   • Example: "The cat was chased by the dog."

   Why is active voice generally preferred?

   • It's clearer and more direct.
   • It often makes your writing more engaging.

   When might you use passive voice?

   • When you don't know who did the action.
   • When you want to emphasize the object of the action.

    

   Active voice	Passive voice
   She is singing a song.	A song is being sung by her.
   K is walking a dog.	A dog is being walked by K.
   B cooked tonight's dinner.	Tonight's dinner was cooked by B.

   Remember: Try to use active voice most of the time, but don't be afraid to use passive voice when it's appropriate. When in doubt, stick to active voice. You can use a tool like hemingwayapp to help you figure out if your sentences are in active/passive voice if you find it difficult to figure it out yourself.
4. Don't write run-on sentences. These are long and confusing for readers.
   

   Here's an example of a long, run-on sentence:

   The cat, which was chasing the mouse, suddenly stopped and looked behind it, startled by the loud noise that was coming from the kitchen, where the dog had knocked over a bowl of food, which was now scattered all over the floor, attracting the attention of the flies that were buzzing around the window.

   What can you do: Break it down into smaller sentences.
   

   The cat, which was chasing the mouse, suddenly stopped. It was startled by the loud noise coming from the kitchen. The dog had knocked over a bowl of food. The food was now scattered all over the floor, attracting a lot of flies that were now buzzing around the window.
   
5. Don't use sentence fragments. 
   

   A sentence is like a complete thought. It needs a beginning, middle, and end to make sense.

   A sentence fragment is like a piece of a thought. It's missing something important, so it doesn't make full sense on its own.

   Here's an example:

   • Complete sentence: The cat chased the mouse.
   • Fragment: Chased the mouse.

   In the second example, "Chased the mouse" is missing the beginning part that tells us who chased the mouse. So, it's a fragment.

   
   

   Here's an example of sentence fragments contributing to bad writing:

   The book was boring. No plot. Uninteresting characters. Didn't finish it.

   
   While these fragments convey the message, they feel choppy and incomplete. Combining them into longer, more complex sentences can improve the flow and coherence of the writing.
   
   

    

   Let's make this read better.
   The book was so boring that I didn't finish it. There was no compelling plot and the characters were uninteresting.

6. Every sentence has to be a complete thought, and has to lead to the next sentence.
   Each paragraph has to be a complete idea; it can have as many sentences as needed to convey that idea. Each paragraph also needs to lead to the next.
   Use subheadings to club ideas together, and to indicate a change to another idea/topic in the piece. 
7. For those of you who are ready to step up your writing a notch, let's look at the next step to writing in a way that people want to keep reading. The human brain is easily bored. It does not want to keep looking at large chunks of text. You need to keep it engaged. And curious about what's coming next. One of the best ways you can do this is quite simple. Vary the length of the sentences in a paragraph.
   For example, just take a look at the paragraph above. 
8. You can apply the same principle to paragraphs as well. Use long, not-so-long and short paragraphs in a judicious mix.