Sentence structure matters, no matter who you are.
You might be a student trying to get a passing grade on an essay, a guy trying to write a text to a smart girl without humiliating yourself, an employee writing a company-wide memo, or a writer working on your next book. When sentence structure gets out of whack, there can be consequences (no passing grade, no first date, no raise, no publishing contract).
The other day I was reading online reviews of a novel and one caught my attention. It complained that the book had too many “named characters.” It made me wonder, does it really matter whether you decide to name a person in a manuscript?
It does.
Last week I asked you what you think the basics of writing well are, and today, I thought I’d ease into the subject of how to write well by talking about the five biggest pitfalls that are hurting your writing.
How do I become a better writer? Nearly every day people email me questions like this. The questions come from the most unlikely places, from fourteen year old aspiring novelists, from corporate and government leaders who want to help their colleagues hone their writing skills, even from people trying to improve their English.
“Practice,” I often tell them. But what do you practice? What are the basic skills you need to learn to write well?
