Writing Advice from Rich Schrefren

Writing is pretty easy. Writing well is not!

It usually all boils down to editing, whether it's a quick pass over a blog post or a longer think-and-edit cycle over something longer.

Rich Schrefren appeared on the scene recently with his great Internet Business Manifesto and related writings and videos.

A recent post of his (yes, he's trying to sell you something) included some great tips on writing and editing, as shown below.

And yes, I (try to) do all of these, perhaps not for a quick blog post, but certainly for something more substantial like my latest ebook, Effective Internet Presence, Now required for success in business and life.

• Read the piece out loud to catch mistakes. You’ll also discover the choppy parts that need to be massaged.
• Sleep on it. Give yourself a break for a day or two and then come back with fresh eyes and a bright red pen.
• Keep trying to trim words. Try to be as economical with your word count.
• Use strong verbs.  Great writing is all about strong verbs.
• Avoid passive  sentences.  Whenever you come across  “to be”  and it’s conjugations (was, were, is, am) it’s a red flag.
• Trim the word  “That”.
• Strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Prune clutter ruthlessly.
• Very few sentences come out right the first time.
• Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Don’t hedge. It just makes your writing weaker.
• Never write anything that you wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation. If you wouldn’t say it that way don’t write it that way.
• Consider the sound, rhythm and alliteration of every sentence. Great writing has rhythm.
• Prune qualifiers like “a bit,” “a little,” “kind of.” They lack authority.
• Often the easiest way to fix a bad sentence is to get rid of it and start over.