5 Ways to Improve Your Writing

Summary

This video, sponsored by Skillshare, explores Benjamin Franklin's journey to becoming a respected writer, highlighting his dedication to improving his craft through deliberate practice. The host shares five key tips for enhancing writing skills, emphasizing the importance of reading widely, building a writing habit, separating writing from editing, reading aloud to refine rhythm, and striving for simplicity. The video also promotes Roxanne Gay's Skillshare class on personal essays and offers a discount for the platform, encouraging viewers to further their writing abilities.

Takeaways

• 📚 Read widely to enrich your writing with diverse experiences and knowledge, as the best authors draw from a wide repertoire of sources.
• 🔍 Actively engage with what you read by questioning how you or other authors would write certain passages, which helps in deepening your understanding and application of writing techniques.
• 🚴‍♂️ Build a writing habit through a ritual that makes starting to write easier, overcoming initial resistance and building momentum.
• 🏗️ Separate the writing process from the editing process to maintain creative momentum and avoid context switching that can hinder the flow of ideas.
• 🎯 Write often to refine the skill, akin to riding a bicycle where the initial push is the hardest but leads to a smoother ride.
• 💡 Create a conducive writing environment with specific rituals like noise-canceling headphones, a particular playlist, or a favorite drink to enhance focus and creativity.
• ⏸️ Avoid editing while writing to prevent the loss of creative momentum; focus on getting ideas onto the page first before refining them.
• 🗣️ Read your writing out loud to better understand its rhythm and flow, which can help in identifying areas for improvement.
• 📉 Simplify your writing by stripping sentences to their cleanest components for clarity and ease of understanding, avoiding unnecessary complexity or jargon.
• 📈 Utilize platforms like Skillshare to access a wide range of classes that can further develop your writing skills across various genres and styles.
• 💌 Seek out constructive criticism and use it as a tool for growth, as Benjamin Franklin did, to improve your writing over time.

Q & A

What was the initial challenge Benjamin Franklin faced in his writing career?

Benjamin Franklin initially faced criticism about his writing from his father, who found his letters during an epistolary duel and told him his writing was not very good.

How did Benjamin Franklin respond to the criticism he received about his writing?

Instead of getting defensive, Benjamin Franklin took the criticism to heart and started seeking out the best writing he could find to study and improve his own writing skills.

What is the first main tip for making writing more interesting according to the script?

The first main tip is to read widely, as the best authors have a wide repertoire of experiences and knowledge from various sources to creatively combine into unique works.

Why is it beneficial to engage actively with the material you read?

Actively engaging with the material, such as by questioning how you or another author would write a certain passage, helps to deeply understand and internalize the writing style and techniques, which can be applied to your own writing.

What is a writing ritual and how can it help in overcoming writing resistance?

A writing ritual is a set of habits that make getting into the writing process easier. It can include writing in a specific place or having certain pre-writing habits, which can help overcome the initial resistance to start writing.

Why is it important to separate the writing process from the editing process?

Separating writing from editing is important because editing while writing interrupts the creative flow and momentum, causing a shift to a less creative mindset and preventing the writer from getting into a state of flow.

How can reading your writing out loud help in the editing process?

Reading out loud exposes the writer to the rhythm of their writing, slows down the reading pace, making it easier to identify spelling errors, grammar issues, and opportunities to simplify the text.

What is the significance of rhythm in writing and how does reading out loud help with it?

Rhythm in writing refers to the flow and cadence of sentences. Reading out loud helps in identifying awkward rhythms, repetitive phrases, or overly long sentences, thus improving the readability of the text.

What is the main idea behind simplifying sentences in writing?

The main idea behind simplifying sentences is to make the writing clearer and easier to understand for the reader. Stripping sentences to their cleanest components helps in effective communication of ideas without unnecessary complexity.

How does the script relate the process of writing to mining for gold?

The script compares writing to mining for gold by emphasizing the need to build momentum and excavate through less useful material to eventually reach the valuable ideas and expressions in writing.

What is the role of Skillshare in the context of this script?

Skillshare is mentioned as a platform offering various classes that can help improve writing skills, with a specific mention of a class by Roxanne Gay on writing personal essays, as well as classes by the script's author on productivity and creative writing habits.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Embracing Criticism to Improve Writing Skills

The video script begins with a story about Benjamin Franklin, emphasizing his journey from a criticized writer to a well-respected one. Franklin took his father's critique seriously, which led him to study the best writings to improve his craft. The narrative transitions into the importance of enhancing writing skills for career advancement and communication. The speaker introduces five tips for improving writing, including reading widely, building a writing habit, and focusing on clarity and interest. The first main tip is to read broadly to enrich one's writing with diverse experiences and styles, as recommended by author Cormac McCarthy. Engaging with the material actively, such as questioning how one would write a particular passage, is suggested as a method to deeply connect with the content.

05:00

🚴‍♂️ Building Writing Momentum Through Rituals

The second paragraph delves into the challenges of writing regularly and compares it to the initial effort required to ride a bicycle. To overcome the initial resistance, the speaker suggests establishing a writing ritual, which includes creating a conducive environment and developing pre-writing habits. Personal anecdotes, such as writing in a specific office devoid of distractions, are shared to illustrate how these rituals can facilitate the writing process. The speaker also touches on the importance of maintaining momentum during writing sessions, warning against the pitfalls of editing while writing, which can disrupt the creative flow. The paragraph concludes with the idea that the first draft is unlikely to resemble the final product, drawing a parallel to the evolution of the movie 'Emperor's New Groove' from a serious story to a comedy.

10:02

✍️ Refining Writing Through Reading Aloud and Simplicity

In the third paragraph, the focus shifts to the editing process, starting with the technique of reading one's writing aloud to uncover rhythm issues and identify areas for improvement. The speaker explains how this method exposes the reader to the natural flow of the writing and helps in spotting errors that might be missed during silent reading. The importance of separating the writing and editing processes is reiterated, with the suggestion to allow for a 'mess' in the first draft, which can be refined later. The paragraph concludes with advice on simplifying writing, using President Franklin D. Roosevelt's revision of a complex statement as an example. The speaker emphasizes the clarity that comes from stripping sentences to their core components, advocating for straightforward language that enhances understanding.

🌟 Enhancing Writing Skills with Skillshare Classes

The final paragraph discusses the value of furthering one's writing skills through classes on Skillshare, specifically mentioning Roxanne Gay's class on writing personal essays. The speaker highlights the platform's wide range of writing-related courses that cater to various interests and needs, from humor writing to fiction. The paragraph also promotes the speaker's own classes on productivity and habit-building, positioning Skillshare as an affordable and comprehensive learning resource. A promotional offer for a discounted annual subscription is presented, encouraging viewers to take advantage of the platform's extensive course offerings. The video concludes with an invitation for viewers to share their writing tips and to engage with the channel's content.

Keywords

💡Skillshare

Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes in design, business, tech, and more. In the context of the video, it is the sponsor and is used as a platform for learning writing skills, emphasizing its role in professional development and personal growth.

💡Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin is a historical figure known for his contributions as a writer, inventor, and statesman. The script uses his story to illustrate the importance of taking criticism constructively and improving one's writing skills, highlighting his journey from being criticized by his father to becoming a respected writer.

💡Epistolary duel

An epistolary duel refers to a disagreement or argument conducted through letters. In the video, it is mentioned to describe an early conflict involving Benjamin Franklin, which led to his motivation to improve his writing skills.

💡Writing craft

The writing craft refers to the skills and techniques involved in writing effectively and persuasively. The video emphasizes the deliberate study and practice of the writing craft as a means to become a better communicator and writer.

💡Writing habit

A writing habit is a routine or consistent practice of writing regularly to improve skills and productivity. The script suggests building a writing habit as a key tip for improving writing, illustrating it with the example of writing 500 words per day.

💡Clarity

Clarity in writing refers to the quality of being easily understood, without ambiguity. The video discusses the importance of clarity and provides tips on how to achieve it, such as simplifying sentences and avoiding unnecessary complexity.

💡Rhythm

Rhythm in writing pertains to the flow and cadence of sentences, which can affect the reader's experience. The script mentions reading out loud as a method to detect and adjust the rhythm, ensuring the writing is engaging and pleasant to read.

💡Momentum

Momentum, in the context of writing, refers to the continuous forward progress in a writing session. The video likens writing to riding a bicycle, emphasizing the importance of building initial momentum to overcome resistance and maintain a productive writing flow.

💡Editing process

The editing process involves revising and refining written work to improve its quality. The script advises separating the writing and editing processes to maintain momentum and creativity during the initial draft, and to focus on refinement later.

💡Simplicity

Simplicity in writing means using clear, straightforward language to convey ideas effectively. The video discusses the value of simplicity, contrasting complex jargon with simple expressions, and advocating for clear and accessible language to enhance understanding.

💡Personal essays

Personal essays are a form of writing that expresses the author's personal experiences, thoughts, and reflections. The script mentions a Skillshare class by Roxanne Gay on writing personal essays, indicating the relevance of writing skills in various contexts beyond professional writing.

Highlights

Benjamin Franklin was a highly respected writer who initially struggled with his writing skills.

Franklin's father critiqued his writing, which motivated Franklin to study and improve his craft.

Improving writing skills is essential for career advancement and effective communication.

Tip 1: Read widely to enrich your writing with diverse experiences and knowledge.

Engage with the material by mentally remixing passages you admire.

Tip 2: Build a writing habit by establishing a writing ritual to overcome initial resistance.

Creating a specific writing environment can help maintain focus and productivity.

Tip 3: Separate the writing and editing processes to maintain creative momentum.

Editing while writing can disrupt the creative flow and hinder productivity.

Tip 4: Read your writing out loud to detect rhythm and pacing issues.

Reading aloud slows you down, making it easier to identify errors and areas for improvement.

Tip 5: Simplify your writing by stripping sentences to their cleanest components.

Simplicity in writing enhances clarity and reader comprehension.

Skillshare offers a variety of writing classes to further develop your skills.

Skillshare's annual plans are affordable, providing access to thousands of classes.

Special offer for a 30% discount on Skillshare's annual premium subscription for the first 1,000 sign-ups.

Engage with the community by sharing your best writing tip in the comments.

Transcripts

- This video is sponsored by Skillshare.

Among his many other accomplishments,

Benjamin Franklin was one of the most

well-respected writers of his time,

but that wasn't always the case.

Early on in his career at one point,

Benjamin Franklin found himself

in the midst of an epistolary duel,

which basically just means he was arguing with somebody

through letter writing.

And at one point during this argument

Benjamin Franklin's father found these letters.

And in typical dad fashion,

took the opportunity to tell old Ben

just how bad his writing was.

Now, most of us probably wouldn't want our dads

critiquing our writing, we'd get a little defensive.

But Benjamin Franklin took this criticism to heart.

And in response, he started seeking out the best writing

he could get his hands on, so he could deliberately study it

and start honing his writing craft.

And through this process,

he became that well-respected writer and thinker.

Now, you might not have

"Become the most well-respected writer of my generation"

at the top of your to-do list,

but even if that's not the case,

improving your writing skills

is one of the best things you can do

for moving forward in your career

and becoming a better communicator.

So today I wanna share five huge tips

for improving your writing,

whether it's a cover letter or a novel,

we're gonna talk about ways to improve

how often you write, building a writing habit,

but we'll also talk about some ways to improve

the clarity of your writing and also how interesting it is.

Let's actually start there,

this interesting, this angle.

How do you make your own writing more interesting

and more fun to read?

Well, this reminds me of a quote I once heard somewhere,

or maybe I made it up, I'm not sure,

but it goes like this.

"An interesting person is an interested person."

In other words,

if you want your writing to have some flare to it,

go out and apply your interest, both to cool experiences,

but also to learning from a wide variety of sources.

And that's the first main tip here, read widely.

As the author Cormac McCarthy once put it,

"Books are made out of books."

And the best authors are the ones who have a wide repertoire

of experiences and knowledge,

and different authors they've read to pull from,

so they can take things and creatively mash them up

into something you've never read before.

If you only read one author or one genre,

then, your writing is gonna feel kind of samey.

It's like trying to cook a chicken

with nothing but black pepper on your spice rack.

If you wanna make something truly delicious,

and truly interesting to eat,

then you may wanna have some more spices on that spice rack.

So expand your reading palette.

And if you wanna do this in a way similar

to how Ben Franklin did it,

then also try to actively engage with what you read as well.

One good way to do this is when you come across a phrase

or passage that you really like, pause,

ask yourself, "Well, how would I write this?"

Or, "How would another author

"that I really like write this?"

And in asking yourself this question,

going through this mental remixing exercise,

you're engaging with the material

in a way that's much more intense

than if you just read it and then passed on.

I'm also in the habit of highlighting these passages

and saving them to my Readwise

so I can come back to them and ponder them sometimes.

This is one that has been stuck in my head

particularly as of late.

"Night City was like a deranged experiment

"in social Darwinism,

"designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb

"permanently on the fast-forward button."

So actively engaging with a wide array of material

is a great way to sort of build an armory

of different weapons you can use

for different challenges, different situations,

but if you wanna be able to use them to wield them well,

then you need to write often, build the skill of writing.

And as you probably know,

writing often is kind of hard to do.

I see writing as kind of like riding a bicycle,

it's all about building momentum.

And that first initial challenge of getting on the bike

is usually the hardest one.

After that, a lot of times you can coast,

put a little bit of effort in and you keep moving forward.

So how do you build that initial bit of momentum?

So one way you can do this

is to build for yourself a writing ritual,

which is basically a set of habits that make

getting into the writing process a little bit easier.

This can get you over that resistance.

And this can involve writing in a specific place

or having a list of things that you do

before you start writing.

Personally, when I was writing my book,

"10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades,"

which I think I published about six years ago now,

there was this little office in the leasing office

in my apartment building where you could go to study.

It had wifi, it had totally blank walls,

and it had this wooden desk

going around the border of the room.

That was basically it.

So it wasn't a very fun place to be,

but it was a place where my video games weren't there,

my friends were there, it was total solitude.

So I would go there and I would put in my 500 words per day,

which I kind of used that goal to get this book done,

and there was this sort of motivation.

I would go in there and I kind of wanted to leave.

So I would get my 500 words done as quickly as possible.

Or at least I thought that,

because interestingly enough,

once you build the writing momentum

in the beginning of a session,

you often now have those creative juices flowing.

You're in a state of flow and you will write more,

in many cases, than you thought you would.

So I went there with the intention of doing 500 words,

and came out having written 1,500 or sometimes 2000.

So having a specific writing place,

even a place that's kind of not all that pleasant,

can be helpful.

And you can also have certain habits

in your writing ritual as well.

Maybe having some noise-canceling headphones

that let you have some more control

over the environment where you're writing,

maybe having a specific playlist that you like to write to.

I've got one called Sunday Study

that I almost always use when I write

and I'll have that linked in the description below,

if you wanna check it out,

or maybe having a specific scent or a specific drink,

like a candle that you write with,

or making a cup of coffee or a cup of tea.

Whatever it is, find your writing ritual

and use it to get over that writing resistance.

Now, we used the bike metaphor before,

and I stand by the belief that starting is the hardest part.

But just like bike riding, writing--

Writing, riding, writing.

Writing is about keeping momentum going.

When you're in a session, you wanna keep the flow going

so you can keep creative things

coming out of your brain and onto the page.

And one of the biggest killers of that momentum

is editing while you write.

So the next big tip is to separate your writing process

from your editing process.

When you edit your writing,

when you see a sentence that you just wrote,

and you're like, "I gotta go back and change that,"

"I saw a spelling error, I gotta go back and fix that,"

you're actually getting into a different state of mind,

you're doing a context switch,

and you're now in a mind state that is less creative.

You've arrested that momentum.

And if you're constantly editing what you've just written,

then you really never get any good momentum going

in the first place.

Another metaphor that I like to use for writing

is of mining for gold.

If you never get down to,

I don't know, 20 feet deep under the ground,

you're never gonna get the gold in the first place.

So you have to build enough momentum

to excavate a bunch of dirt,

a bunch of not very useful stuff,

to get to the point in a writing session

where the real good gems come out.

You can come back and edit them later.

The other point of this is that you often don't know

what the end product is going to look like

after you've gone through several different iterations.

So it's kind of pointless

to try and do a first draft that's perfect,

because it's always gonna change.

A great example of this, maybe my favorite,

comes from the cinematic masterpiece

that is "Emperor's New Groove."

If you don't know about the troubled history of this movie,

when it started out in development,

it was supposed to be a much more serious story

kind of in the vein of the "Lion King,"

that kind of a feel.

And what we ended up with was this buddy comedy movie,

one of Disney's best movies ever, but very different

than it initially had been conceptualized.

So just realize that what you start writing right now

is probably not gonna look anything like your final product.

So just let yourself get ideas onto the paper.

Like I say, get a mess on the paper,

and you can come back later and clean that mess up.

It's a lot easier than trying to craft something perfect

from a blank page.

Okay, so let's look at the edit process now.

You've got your first draft down on the paper

or on the computer screen,

and now you wanna hone it

and make it as good as it can be.

What's the first step to doing that?

Well, I think a good first candidate

is reading your writing out loud,

like I'm gonna do right now with this script.

"We tend think of writing as a silent art form

"but it has a lot more in common with music

"than you might think.

"And because we don't often think about this fact,

"we often overlook another very important piece

"of good writing, rhythm.

"For example, you might use too many sentences

"of similar lengths in a row.

"For example, you might keep using similar phrases

"or you might elongate your sentences,

"leaving the length a little too long,

"stringing too many clauses together,

"running on and on and on.

"You might also just use phrases

"that have a lot of similarity,

"or you might have simply a word."

Simply a word, "Simply forgotten a word."

See?

Now, reading out loud can feel a bit awkward,

especially if there's another person in the room.

Ask me, I go through scripts all the time

with my editor in the room.

And yes, it is a little bit awkward.

But if you don't do it,

you're liable to gloss over things

that could help make the reading experience

less awkward for your reader.

And that's really the most important thing, right?

Reading out loud not only exposes you

to the rhythm of your writing,

but it also slows you down necessarily.

When we read silently, when we're reading for comprehension,

we read between 200 to 400 words per minute on average.

When we're scanning through our own writing,

trying to find little things to fix,

we go even faster than that.

And the faster you go, the easier it is to skip over things.

But when we read out loud,

most people can't read comfortably out loud

at more than 150 words per minute.

And at that pace, it's very easy to pick out

spelling errors, grammar issues,

or opportunities to simplify.

And that's our last tip here.

There's this great quote in the book "On Writing Well"

from the author Williams Zinsser that goes,

"The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence

"to its cleanest components."

I wanna give you a great example of this.

Back in World War II,

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's aids

put out this statement,

and this is a mouthful, so bear with me here.

"Such preparations shall be made

"as will completely obscure all Federal buildings

"and non-Federal buildings

"occupied by the Federal government

"during an air raid for any period of time from visibility

"by reason of internal or external illumination."

President Roosevelt took that and changed it to this,

"Tell them that in buildings

"where they have to keep the work going

"to put something across the windows."

He removed 20 words of that original sentence,

and the ones that were remaining got way, way simpler,

and in doing so, he communicated so much more,

because the original blurb of text

actually communicated nothing to most people.

If you felt your brain kind of sliding out of your ear

when I read that first blurb, you're not alone.

It was a bunch of jargon.

It was almost impossible to understand.

And sometimes, your own writing takes on a similar quality.

Sometimes, we're trying to sound smart

and use big vocabulary.

Sometimes, we don't even really consider the simplicity

and it gets a little bit too complex.

And simplicity doesn't necessarily mean

stripping things down to as few words as possible,

because sometimes, words add color, words add description,

they make things more vivid and interesting.

But a lot of times, words are there

just because we want them to be there.

We have a lot of, I think, trauma,

from our teachers telling us word limits

that we had to hit for essays in high school

and in elementary school, right?

And a lot of times, we're trying to use big words

that make us sound a little bit intelligent.

But from a reader's perspective,

they would almost always rather have you

use the word use than utilize, words than lexicon,

because it's easier to parse, easier to understand.

These big words don't really add anything

to the reading experience.

If you wanna take your writing even further,

there's a great class on Skillshare

all about writing personal essays from Roxanne Gay,

who has written for the New York Times

and has written several published books of her own.

It's a fantastic class

that'll help you hone your writing skills

and help you apply them to personal essays,

personal statements for job applications,

all kinds of stuff that comes up

in the daily life of even non-writers.

And because her class is on Skillshare,

when you get access to it,

you get access to thousands of other classes.

And writing is a hugely well-represented area on Skillshare.

There are classes on writing with humor.

There are classes on writing fiction.

There are a ton of classes

that can hone your skillset in this area.

So it's a great way to, just as Ben Franklin once did,

start deliberately practicing, deliberately studying.

Also on Skillshare, you're gonna find a few classes

from yours truly.

I've got one on productivity for creatives,

which has a whole section

on building that creative writing habit,

which can also be applied to any other creative work.

I've got classes on building your productivity system,

on building strong habits.

So it's also a great place for becoming more productive.

And Skillshare is a very affordable learning platform too,

with their annual plans

starting at less than 10 bucks a month.

And that's just the normal pricing.

Actually right now,

if you're one of the first 1,000 people to click the link

in the description down below and sign up,

you can get 30% off that normal annual price.

And this is even available to you

if you've already gone through a free trial.

So you can use that special pricing

to get back into Skillshare

and take any of the classes you want,

from marketing classes to public speaking classes,

to classes on digital illustration and video editing.

So once again, be one of the first 1,000 people

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Doing that is also a great way to support this channel.

So if you choose to support my sponsors,

seriously, thank you so much.

And thank you for watching this video

all the way to the end.

Seriously, you are awesome.

Got one last thing here,

and that is to ask you a simple question.

What is your best writing tip

that I didn't mention in this video?

Leave your answer in the comments down below.

We can all learn together, become better writers together.

And I've got a playlist of videos here

with some more writing tips,

writing apps I've recommended in the past.

So check them out, if you're curious.

Beyond that, you can get subscribed

if you haven't done so already,

or go and do literally whatever you want,

'cause, as always, I'm not your dad.