How To Simplify Your Writing

by Monika Mundell @ The Writers Manifesto

Good writing starts when the bull stops. Simplified writing is about getting rid of word clutter and introducing the simple words back into your stories.

If you are anything like me, you probably thought at one stage that in order to write well you had to use fancy words and complicated technical terms; basically, the harder it was to decipher for your readers, the better your writing was.

But you were wrong! And so was I!

Good writing is simple. Simple means that you prefer to use words that are easy to comprehend and understand. Therefore this is why kids books are so popular and successful. Just look at the famous Harry Potter books by J.K.Rowling. The text is easy to read while it provides enough excitement to want to keep reading on.

This is exactly what every writer needs to do. If you are using Microsoft Word, then you are in luck as there is a great free tool called Fight the Bull that tells you when you start rambling.

Fight the Bull is ideal for writers who tend to complicate their words with hard to understand terms and analogies.

Another way to simplify your writing is to just relax. Try too hard and you will get stuck, guaranteed. Good writing comes with practice and application. It also comes with your acceptance to keep learning.

I see the process from being a beginner to a good writer as follows:

When you first start out you are like the apprentice chef who never held a knife in his hands. He is nervous because he is afraid to cut himself. But his boss is adamant that he keeps chopping and cutting vegetables until he goes green in order to further his abilities….

…. as time goes on, the young apprentice grows into a capable chef who learns to sharpen his knife to keep it maintained. Meanwhile he gets better at cutting and is soon allowed to cut meats and fish (the more expensive stuff)…

…after a few months/years of applied learning, the young apprentice grows finally into a knife handling master; capable of doing all work in the kitchen – by now he is very good at using knifes and no longer cuts his fingers or hand while doing so.

Like the young apprentice chef, a writer grows from a fledgling into something more grown up and as he does, the choice of his words and his ability to play with them will become much better.

This is when simplified writing is at its best.