Pro tips on writing from Bill Rice, Jr
… Actually, I don’t consider myself a pro. Writing doesn’t come naturally to me. But if I have something to say, I have to engage in this craft.
I guess I’m known as a writer, but writing does not come naturally to me. I have to work very hard - revise, revise, revise - to produce articles I think might be “pass-able.”
The first prerequisite for becoming a competent writer is to be an avid reader. If you read a great deal, through osmosis, you develop a sense of the key structures that make an article work.
While one reads an article because a topic interests you, an aspiring writer will also pick up on the strong verbs, pronouns, modifiers and transitions the author used to convey his thoughts in a clear and professional manner. The best lessons I’ve learned about quality writing I learned by simply reading.
While I’ll never be a Mencken or F. Scott Fitzgerald, I can pass along a few tips that have converted my embarrassing first drafts into essays I’m comfortable sending out into the world wide web. (Catching and correcting the typos comes later).
Lessons from school that stuck with me …
- Reduce the number of sentences that start with the word “There” - Better ways exist to start a sentence. (Thank you, Mrs. Eiland!)
- Don’t confuse readers with pronouns that are not precise. Instead of saying “they,” tell the reader who they are.
- Listen to your ear. The guidance your brain is sending you is a product of a lifetime of reading.
Upon reflection, the most important classes I took in school were basic math, typing and 7th grade English, where Mrs. Burke’s taught her students how to diagram sentences.
From what I’ve been told, I’m not sure many students still learn how to diagram sentences. (Also, I know from my two children that “basic math” is now being taught in some convoluted new way).
Speaking for myself, diagraming sentences taught me all the key lessons of effective sentence construction.
I learned that nouns should agree with verbs and if you don’t put a modifying word or phrase in the right place, you’re going to confuse the reader. With every article I write, I move phrases from the end of the sentence to the beginning of the sentence (or vice versa) and find modifiers that were in the wrong place.
Just like with math, basic logic applies to sentence construction … that is, if you paid attention to Mrs. Burke’s chalk-board hieroglyphics.
- Use strong verbs.
- One of my best writing tips didn’t come from a teacher or editor, but from Nick Costes, who wrote a weekly column for my newspaper, The Troy Citizen. Nick always read my articles and one day - after he volunteered to vacuum our office! - he told me I use the passive voice far too often.
Instead of saying, “the ball was caught by me,” I should simply write, “I caught the ball.”
Using the active voice is one of the easiest improvements one can make to your articles.
An aside about one of my favorite people …
Nick Costes taught kinesiology at Troy State University for decades. He was one of the most famous and eccentric/interesting men who ever lived in Troy.
Nick was famous because he competed as a marathoner in the 1956 Olympics (finishing 20th, America’s highest finisher) and once finished third in the Boston Marathon.
Nick, like Forrest Gump, never quit running. Everyone in Troy beyond a certain age remembers seeing Nick, shirt off, running through town and campus. While he quit competing, he would have won every distance race for runners over 50, 60 and 70.
At one Troy State football game in the early 1960s, as a fund-raiser for the track team, Nick and a couple of college distance runners ran non-stop around the track during the game, before the game and into the night! If my facts are right, I think this group of four runners set a national record for most miles run in 24 hours … and nobody ran more miles than the little professor with the distinct running gait.
As a teacher, Nick did not believe in grade inflation. Many of Nick’s former students have told me they had to work harder to earn a D in kinesiology than they ever worked to get an A or B in advanced biology.
More writing tips (from a non-pro) …
- It’s a cliche, but avoid cliches. My writing is actually replete with trite expressions - at least in first drafts. With first drafts, I simply try to get my main ideas onto the computer screen. As noted, I’m not a “natural” writer and it takes too much brain exertion to construct clever sentences on the first try.
I just come back later and deal with the cliches. However, I’ve produced some of my favorite sentences by doing plastic surgery on a cliche.
- Try to produce a catchy lead sentence or paragraph and close with a strong sentence.
- Before you start writing, identify something you want to say, a subject that interests you and is perhaps fairly original. If you have a good idea that interests you, the story will almost write itself. If you care about your idea, you’ll polish the text.
Many novice writers produce outlines of their stories. I do this only on very long and complex subjects. I’ve learned that stories that take me hours to type and then revise, are actually written in my head in a matter of minutes (usually on coffee breaks on my back porch).
Editor tips …
I pride myself on being one of Substack’s most prolific critics of awful and captured mainstream journalism. This noted, I do own copies of the AP Style Book and have read this book cover to cover.
Some people are surprised to learn that, not counting the three years I was on the high school newspaper staff, I’ve never taken a journalism class.
The good news is that everything you need to know about writing a news or feature story, you can teach yourself by following this style book, by reading thousands of other stories … and from working under at least one great editor who flogs your copy with a red marker.
As another aside, I’ve worked as an editor and tried to mentor many cub reporters. A few had promise or natural talent and I enjoyed coaching them. However, with many young journalists or college interns, I couldn’t help but wonder why these people decided to pursue a career in journalism.
To me, these people exhibited scant natural curiosity about the world or current events, their general knowledge (knowing a fair amount about a lot of subjects) appeared to be middle-school- level, and re-writing their copy wore me out.
- Write short paragraphs. Long passages of text create a gray blob on newsprint (or your computer screen) and intimidate readers.
- If you’ve got a good story, you need to sell it or present it in a way that will encourage readers to read the whole thing.
A catchy headline can be the difference between 100 reads or 10,000 reads. Sub-headlines provide an opportunity to show off your wit and also break up long pieces of text.
- Lastly, if at all possible, write short … which, usually, I can’t.
As always, do as I say, not as I do.
(Most “professional” writers work for corporate or mainstream news organizations and get paid a salary (and benefits). I recommend working for such an organization if you want to be paid a regular salary, but not if you are interested in this career because you want to honestly tell important stories that matter. If you want to do that, consider joining us here on Substack.)
CORRECTION ... that shows how my mind doesn't always work.
I wrote, " I'll never be another Mencken or Gatsby," when I, of course, meant F. Scott Fitzgerald, the man who wrote The Great Gatsby.
I make mistakes like this all the time. Every writer needs a competent editor. At larger newspapers, you'd have several layers of editors to catch these errors. At Substack, I have our dog Annie. She tries her best but she didn't go to the best schools and she doesn't have a great deal of editing experience.
P.S. F. Scott Fitzgerald met his wife, Zelda, in Montgomery, Alabama where I lived for 10 years. I drove by the Fitzgerald House all the time. It's now a museum.
Zelda was a legend in Montgomery even before she met her famous husband.
"The first prerequisite for becoming a competent writer is to be an avid reader."
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For me, the biggest surprise in becoming a 'pro writer' (lol) is how much reading it takes. I'll sit and read about something for hours before even starting to write about it. Then it's a couple more hours of just jotting down stream-of-consciousness thoughts that will eventually be expanded into sentences or paragraphs. Then maybe an hour or two of collecting videos and other links to reinforce the story.
THEN comes the actual writing.
But if there's one piece of advice I would give to answer the question "How do I get better at writing?", it's this -- practice writing. It sounds dumb but it's true. At some point you just have to sit down and allow the words to start flowing out. Before you know it, the article is 2500 words and WAY too long.......