blog-writing Archives - Page 4 of 5

The 9 Rights of Every Writer — Peer Pressure Is for Jr. High School

August 10, 2006 by Liz

Can’t Stay in My Box — I Never Was Cool

I suppose if I were the savvy one, I’d wait until Monday or Tuesday to write this post. But I’m not. I’m the one who writes when the writing needs to be done. This post can’t wait until Monday or Tuesday, and darn it. It shouldn’t either.

The dialogue around the blogs that I read a lot and among some bloggers that I care about has been around one big question lately that keeps getting twisted and turned.

Do I write about what I know and want, or do I change what I write when I see big traffic come?

It’s time we talk about the rights of a writer. [Read more…]

The 5 Traits of an Infallible Writing Program

August 4, 2006 by Liz

Why There Is No Decent Writing Program

I received an email asking:

Is there such a programme (not software) for writing? A simple one?
If not, can it be done?

My answer:

There is not one that I know of. The problem is that language is so complicated that the finest copyeditor I know can sit for hours over a sentence unraveling its meaning and its correctness.

A writing program requires a human. Otherwise you end up with a stilted bad translation, like a piano player who knows all technique and no art — or a designer with the same problem. You only get so much without discussing an original whole developed by the learner to test the message the learner is trying to send to make sure its the same one the reader is getting. It’s the ambiguity of words and the twists and turns of spelling that make learning to write too complicated to teach from a book or a computer program.

The 5 Traits of an Infallible Writing Program

Each writer’s process is individual. We find our own way to it. If your quest is to become an effective writer, you’re really taking on an apprenticeship. These are the 5 traits you need to build an infallible writing program.

2. To offer direction based on your writing, you need a human, a coach, a teacher, a fluent writer, who understands the dynamic tension between structure and expression, who can listen like a reader and translate you message, and who loves the music of the language. Writers need constant feedback no question.

3. You need writer friends to coach you with tips and techniques that they use, the way an old jazz guitarist shares what he’s learned with a new one. Writers need input to keep growing.

4. Plenty of technical resources and reference books to check for how to do things according to conventions, such as capitalization and punctuation, grammar, usage, and mechanics. And you need someone to show you how to use them as manuals not roadmaps.

5. You need time for reflection. Time to think the deep thoughts. Without them, serious writing just doesn’t happen. The world gets in the way. It only takes a few minutes to let a writer find the quiet to write in.

Learning to write starts the day we learn our first word and continues until we write our last one. It works in this way:

First we listen. Then we speak. Then we read. Then we write. The more we listen, speak, read, and write with folks who can already do it, the more fluent we become in the language, and the more we understand how to use it. With fluent speakers and writers guiding us, we learn to do it faster, broader and more deeply.

In the end, we learn to write as we learn to talk, by doing it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

If you think Liz can help you with your writing check out the Work with Liz!! page in the side bar.

While You Were Out Having a Life

July 5, 2006 by Liz

Highlights for Readers

I know that most of you have a real life, and that during this holiday you actually lived it. With that in mind, I’ve collected the recent posts on the most popular topics and brought them together here for you.

Click on the titles of the ones that you want to explore.

Hope this helps make your life a little easier. I know it’s always hard this first day back to work.

Brand you and me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help with your writing, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related articles
Checked the complete Writing Power for Everyone series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE.

6+1: How-to Blogging â Stomp Out Swiss Cheese Knowledge

July 3, 2006 by Liz

What Have You Taught Me Lately?

Bloggers are always teaching or learning something. Blogs are filled with ways to promote a blog, to build a brand, to install a new plugin. When we get a new program, instructions come with it. Sometimes we follow them. Sometimes they work. Sometimes big parts of them seem to be missing.

How-to blogging teaches something.

A how-to post could be as simple as how to a make a sandwich or as complicated as how to turn your computer into a host server for WordPress.

People read how-to articles because they want to be learning.

Therefore: Nothing is worse than a how-to post that skipped a step.

I hate information that has holes in it. [Read more…]

6+1, 2, 3: Save Me from Beginners and Experts NOW!

July 1, 2006 by Liz

Folks Who Are Learning and Folks Who Know

Most bloggers find their audience is a lot like you are — an audience of folks who learning and folks who know a whole lot. That can throw a new writer. It can seem a problem of huge proportions. It’s not hard to think that what you have is two different audiences in one. How do you know how much to say and how much to leave out? It’s easy to get twisted trying to write for an audience of people who are both beginning and experienced.

Get twisted, heck! Somebody save me NOW!. From where I sit, some days the beginners need to learn so much, and the experts already seem to know all of it. How do I possibly talk to both of them at once, without risking insulting or boring either one of them?

That writer’s problem can seem impossible to solve, but it’s not. In fact, it’s not even a problem at all. [Read more…]

6+1 Traits: Sentence Fluency — I Got Rhythm

June 29, 2006 by Liz

(Updated in 2020)

I Got Rhythm I Got Music

We talk about being fluent in a foreign language, but it’s almost foreign to talk about being fluent in our own.

Wow! That’s a fluent sentence. It’s got rhythm and cadence. It’s well-built and interesting. It stands well on its own and it almost dares you to read it out loud.

If I were to guess why so many people tell me I’m a great writer, I would guess that sentence fluency has a something to do with what they are thinking about.

Sentence fluency is the romance of how words come together to pass on meaning. To me it’s the seduction of writing. It’s what writers mean when they use the word compose.

As a reader, I want the words to carry me and do what great music does — take me along with them — slow down when I need to listen hard and go fast, fast, fast, when the writer is telling something that’s exciting and fun.

As with all of the traits of effective writing, writers have ways to make writing dance to the tune that you want.

Flow Rhythm and Cadence

Sentence fluency is all about flow, rhythm and cadence. Start with the well-built sentences that you learned in school. (Okay we’ll go to some grammar next.) Those well-built sentences are the basic lines of the music of the language. Here are 6 +1 ways to help you compose.

- Write sentences that underscore your meaning. The example I used started and ended with the idea of fluency.
- Vary the length of your sentences. This is the one that is easiest and that folks miss most. A short sentence after two or three long ones is a relief to a reader. Two or three short ones in a row can be fun. Break things up.
- Fragments and dialogue can add power and rhythm.

You’re old enough to eat ice cream for breakfast now. You can decide when it’s okay to use what’s not a complete sentence. Making everything a sentence slows things down. The rule to follow is whether readers can follow you. End of story. Kick that self-editor out of your head.

Start sentences in different ways to add variety and energy. Try to avoid There is and It is as much as you can. Start with the first noun after them and rewrite the sentence from there.
Use transitions and segues that are appropriate and compelling. Show me how things connect and build on each other. Also use thoughts that make me curious about where you’re going.
Write with a cadence that you can hear when you read your work aloud. Listen for the sound of your words and their pacing as well as their meaning. Do words roll and bounce where they should? Do they slow and tiptoe where the topic is serious? Do they speed up and tumble when the topic is not?

PLUS ONE: Despite what they say, sometimes the passive voice is the right way to say something. If you take out the passive voice totally most documents sound stilted, as if they were meant for children learning to read. You know your readers. Your eyes and your ears are the best judge of what works.

Effective writing is fluent and fun. It carries me effortlessly to the end of the piece so much so that I don’t even realize it. It’s like dancing with a partner who knows how to lead, I relax and enjoy the participation. I start reading, and before I know it I’m done.

Fluent writers are the ones that you want to read more of. They are addictive. You can hear their voice even when you’re not reading their words. I just showed you how you can get to be one of them. It’s not magic. It takes time and practice though.

Imagine what that fluent writing can do for your brand.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related Articles
9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer
9 + 1 The Sequel – When Big Words Go Bad
6+1: Writing Voice the Sound of Your Brand
See the Writing Power for Everyone Series on the Successful Series Page.