Four Ways to Immediately Improve the Quality of Your Writing

Writing is not really an art. It is a craft, and crafts can be learned. Here are four techniques you can use to immediately improve the quality of any writing you do, from business letters to web site articles:

1. After you run your spell checking software, go back and reread your writing. Very few people are good spellers, which is why spell checking software became popular years ago. Unfortunately, reliance on the software leads to silly errors. For example, the words "form" and "from" are both good, legitimate words. But if you wrote a business letter that said, "We will be taking $200 form your checking account to cover the payment," would your spell check software catch the error? Yet a simple typo changed "from your checking account" to the silly "form your checking account. Spell checkers are a convenience, but they are neither authoritative nor infallible. Always read through your writing at least once after you spell check -- and keep a dictionary handy.

2. Use that famous "KISS" principle for your punctuation. You know the rule, don't you? "Keep It Simple, Stupid" is the rule regarding punctuation. If you don't know how or when to use a semicolon, then avoid semicolons; you'll only display ignorance if you get it wrong. In keeping with that KISS principle, limit your use of commas. Far too many people use far too many commas. Just because a sentence is long does not mean it needs a comma. Well-placed commas make reading easier and are appropriate. Commas thrown in simply to break up the words are incorrect and distracting. Another important rule of punctuation is to avoid using exclamation marks almost always. If your choice of words, sentence structure, and overall prose don't convey the sense of excitement you are seeking, an exclamation mark won't do it. If your writing conveys your sense of excitement, an exclamation point is, well, pointless.

3. Make sure your writing is grammatically correct. You don't have to be an English teacher to get the grammar correct. You simply need to learn the basics -- verbs and subjects agree in number, for example. That is, "he was" is correct; "they were" is correct. To say "they was" is incorrect. If you aren't sure about using grammar, especially if English isn't your "first" language, go to some good reference sites for fundamental English grammar and usage. (If you are writing in another language, the same advice holds true for that language.) Invest in a good, basic grammar book or style manual. Check with any bookstore, online or offline, and you can find one.

4. When you finish some writing, put it aside for a couple of hours or days (if possible), then reread it before you let go of it. Of course, if you're writing or dictating a business letter or other "time sensitive" document, this may not be possible. If you set your article or story aside for even a day, then reread it, you may be surprised at glaring errors or significant changes you will want to make. And you thought before that it was finished. Many writers and teachers have commented that all true writing is done in the rewriting. Take that advice to heart and you will significantly improve your writing.

These four steps, rechecking your spelling, taking care with punctuation, watching for fundamental grammar errors, and rewriting, will improve your writing. They are proven tools used by every word craftsman.

Treat Your Writing as a Business

Writing is more than just a creative process. It's a business that can create a substantial income for you. First, however, you may need to change your entire mindset.

The dream of almost any unpublished writer is one day getting published. To have their material read by the masses of people who love to read. Then, secondary to that is the desire to even get paid for their work.

Writing is one of those passions that seem to rise up from deep within and whether money is involved or not, the writer is compelled to write. Words become a living entity that breathes life into the reader who consumes them.

This is fine except that when a writer needs to make a living, the business and financial end tend to land on the back cover of the entire publishing process.

It is important for any writer to realize that once they have completed a writing project, it is then time to stop being a writer and begin being a businessperson.

Time spent creating your work is time that should be charged to your company. If you're not sure what to charge as an hourly rate, ask yourself what it would cost you to hire someone to write it for you.

Publishing contracts and processes take on many faces and all are negotiable. Having your book tied up at a publisher who will take upwards of a year to evaluate your work, and possibly reject it, is like trying to buy a car while you wait for the salesman to decide if he wants your business or not. Besides, you wouldn't give someone a year to try out your couch before they decided if they wanted to buy it or not, so why would you do it with your livelihood?

A partnership with a publisher is essentially a joint venture between two companies - yours and theirs. Your mandate as a business owner is not to just hope that they will like your writing and decide to publish. Your job is to decide if your product and their company is a good match and to allow them to do the same. Whether you actually got paid or not, if you have billed your research and writing time to your company, then you are coming to the table with a major financial investment in your hands. If you couple that together with your talent and your ability to view the world in a way that others want to explore it then you have a valuable commodity to do business with. Never feel inferior.

Are you very creative? Can see things that others might not? Do you think that you can list and expand on all the benefits of a soup bowl? If so, then copywriting may be a style of writing you wish to consider as a business venture.

Copywriters write compelling advertisement copy for companies.

Have you ever bought a meal at a quality restaurant based solely on the succulent description you read in their menu? Or did you buy a product somewhere because of what you read in a magazine ad? What about the letters you read in your mail advertising everything from credit cards to antique grandfather clocks? Those are all the works of a copywriter.

This is a very lucrative field and copywriters can make thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars, writing about just one product. Why? Because a seller knows that a good copywriter will generate far more money in product sales than what the seller paid for the copywriting itself.

If you want to see who is looking for writers, then go to elance.com online, or buy "The Writers Market" in your bookstore.

By changing how you view your writing, you can be both creative and financially rewarded.

Keep writing!