“Write every day.”

How often have you heard me to harp on that?

Okay, way too much, but writing is like any skill.  It requires practice. That said, these pro tips and tricks will reduce frustration, improve quality and keep you heading toward complete and total writing success.

Here are tasty writing tidbits* so you can put one to use each day of May.

1. Use Golden Rule of Writing: Write what you would want to read
2. Honor the reader and walk in his/her shoes
3. Create what ticks them off; what makes them smile
4. Be the problem solver:  Include negatives and provide solutions
5. Don’t assume, presume or take for granted previous knowledge
6. Check facts
7. Define odd/new/unusual words/terms at once
8. Write to and not down to your reader
9. Become ruthless at self-editing
10. Forget being a perfectionist; be as good as you can
11. Let writing cool and then read it out loud
12. Avoid prologues
13. Use active dialogue
14. Hook the reader
15. Tie up all loose ends, especially with fiction and subplots
16. Explain without fluff
17. Add dialogue
18. Leave out the dull stuff
19. Avoid redundancy or even a hint of it
20. Give specific examples; use real-world scenarios
21. Paint with words:  Show it with emotion
22. Realign the word orders
23. Use care with alliteration, but don’t fear it
24. Add humor when appropriate
25. Trim out prepositional phrases
26. Be brave with sentence length
27. Keep paragraphs under eight type-written lines
28. Add snap, crackle and pop words to your prose; sounds are fun
29. Cut parenthetical asides
30. Write a page a day
31. Have fun, goof off, relax and enjoy the journey

*Tidbit:  A small and particularly interesting item of gossip or information or a tasty bite of food.
©Eva Shaw, Ph.D., www.evashaw.com, 2019