On improving your writing

People sometimes ask how to get better at writing. The honest answer is that it takes years and there is no shortcut, but there are a handful of principles that, once understood, tend to accelerate the process. These are not rules — they are observations gathered over fifteen years of writing and editing, offered in the spirit of one writer talking to another over a kitchen table.

Write less, say more

The most common problem in early drafts is not a lack of words but a surplus of them. Sentences carry passengers — words that do no work, that are there out of habit or nervousness rather than necessity. "In order to" is almost always just "to." "The fact that" is almost always deletable. "It is important to note that" is a throat-clearing that delays the actual point.

The discipline is simple but difficult: after writing a sentence, ask whether every word earns its place. If a word can be removed without changing the meaning or the rhythm, remove it. The sentence that remains will be clearer, faster, and more confident.

This does not mean writing short sentences exclusively. Long sentences are fine — beautiful, even — when every clause does real work. The enemy is not length but slack.

Read as a writer

Most people read for content: what happens, what is said, what is argued. Writers need to read for technique as well: how the sentences are built, where the paragraph breaks fall, how the writer handles transitions between ideas, what is left out as much as what is included.

When you find a passage that works — a paragraph that moves you, or a sentence that lands with unusual force — stop and ask how. Read it again slowly. Look at the sentence length. Look at the word choices. Look at what came before it (often the power of a sentence comes from the setup, not the sentence itself). Keep a notebook of passages that teach you something, not because you will imitate them directly, but because close attention to good prose trains the ear over time.

Revision is where writing happens

First drafts are not writing — they are the raw material from which writing is made. The actual writing happens in revision: cutting, reordering, sharpening, questioning, rethinking. Most good writers revise extensively. Many revise a piece five, ten, fifteen times before it feels finished.

The revision process works best with distance. Finish a draft, then leave it for a day, a week, or longer if the deadline allows. When you return, you will see it more clearly — the sentences that seemed good in the heat of composition will reveal their weaknesses; the structure that felt inevitable will show its gaps.

A practical approach: on the first revision, focus on structure. Is the piece in the right order? Does it begin in the right place? Does it end where it should? On the second revision, focus on paragraphs and transitions. On the third, focus on sentences and word choice. This layered approach prevents the overwhelming feeling of trying to fix everything at once.

Find your subject

Beginning writers often ask what to write about, as though the subject were something you choose from a menu. In practice, your subjects find you. They are the things you notice, the things you cannot stop thinking about, the things that seem unremarkable to everyone else but feel quietly significant to you.

Pay attention to what holds your attention. If you find yourself lingering on a particular moment — a conversation overheard, a quality of light at a particular time of day, a habit your neighbour has — that lingering is a signal. It means something in that moment has caught on some hook in your mind, and writing is often the process of figuring out what that hook is.

Do not wait for large subjects. The best personal essays are almost always about small things examined closely, not large things described broadly.

On voice

Voice is the most misunderstood element of writing. People think it is something you develop, as though you sit down and decide what your voice will sound like. In reality, voice is what remains after you stop trying to sound like someone else. It is the natural rhythm of your thinking, expressed in sentences.

The fastest way to find your voice is to write a great deal and to stop imitating. Read widely (so your ear absorbs many rhythms), but when you sit down to write, write in your own cadence. If you tend toward short sentences, let them be short. If you tend toward long, winding constructions, let them wind — but make sure they arrive somewhere. The voice will emerge from consistency and honesty, not from stylistic decisions made in advance.

The practice of showing up

Writing improves with repetition, but only if you actually do it. The single most important habit is regularity: writing at the same time, in the same place, on a predictable schedule. It does not matter whether the schedule is daily or three times a week or once a week — what matters is that you honour it.

On days when the writing goes badly (and it will, often), the discipline is to sit through the discomfort rather than walking away. Bad writing days are not wasted — they are the days when the resistance is highest, and pushing through that resistance is how the practice deepens over time. The professional writer is not the one who writes well every day; it is the one who writes on the days when writing feels impossible.

On being stuck

Every writer gets stuck. The feeling is familiar: you sit down, open the document, and nothing comes. Or worse, you write a paragraph and it is so obviously poor that you delete it and sit in silence.

A few things that help:

• Lower the stakes. Tell yourself you are writing a note, not an essay. Notes do not need to be good. They just need to exist. Often the essay is hiding inside the note.
• Start in the middle. If you cannot write the opening, skip it. Write the paragraph you can see most clearly, wherever it falls in the piece. Openings are easier to write once you know what they are opening onto.
• Write about being stuck. It sounds circular, but writing a paragraph about why you cannot write often shakes something loose. The act of articulating the problem — "I do not know what this piece is about" — sometimes reveals the answer.
• Walk. Physical movement, especially walking without a destination, reliably generates ideas. Carry a small notebook or send yourself a voice memo when something surfaces.

On feedback

Sharing your work with other people is necessary and painful. A few guidelines for making it productive:

Choose readers carefully. The best reader is someone who reads the kind of thing you write, who will tell you what is not working without being cruel, and who understands that early drafts are not finished work. A reader who only says "it's good" is not useful. A reader who tears everything apart without specificity is not useful either. Look for the reader who says "this section lost me, and I think it's because..." — that specificity is gold.

When receiving feedback, resist the urge to explain. If a reader misunderstood something, the problem is usually in the writing, not in the reader. Your writing has to work without you standing beside it offering commentary.

A final thought

Writing is not a talent you either have or lack. It is a skill that develops with practice, attention, and patience. The writers you admire were not born writing well — they wrote badly for years and kept going. The only real requirement is that you care enough about clarity and truth to keep revising until the sentences say what you mean.

If you would like to discuss editing work or have questions about the writing life, email [email protected].