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Do you have bad writing habits? Check out this list and resolve to give yourself a fighting chance to become a much better — and more relaxed — writer…
I never learned how to write when I was a journalist. My habits were already too dysfunctional. Years of higher education had trained me to be a perfectionist who needed to rewrite every sentence as soon as I’d produced it.
Now, I write easily and happily. It’s taken me years to get this way. I did it by breaking the seven bad writing habits that, for years, kept me trapped. Here’s a summary:
Writing too soon
Many writers — alarmed by their own deadlines — try to begin writing as quickly as possible. It’s as if they imagine they haven’t started the job until they have words either down on paper or sitting on their computer. I made the mistake of doing this when I wrote a thesis; as a result, it took me more than twice as long as it should have.
What to do instead:
Begin by reverse-engineering your writing assignment. Start backwards, with the due date, and then assign deadlines to every stage of the writing process — proofreading, copy editing, rewriting, producing the crappy first draft, researching, mind mapping, thinking and planning. Most of all, don’t underestimate the importance of thinking and planning before you write a word. If you haven’t figured out who your audience is, or what your objectives are, how will you ever know when you’ve hit the right mark?
Waiting to be inspired
Many people assume that writing is all about inspiration. It’s not. The man who invented the electric light bulb — Thomas Edison — said, “genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” (In fact, some sources present his odds even more aggressively, “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”) Good writing is about hard work, not about divine guidance.
What to do instead:
When the moment to write arrives — which is to say, you’ve done enough thinking and planning — don’t wait for the Muses to appear. Instead, sit yourself down at your desk and start writing. I like to follow the advice of best-selling author Herman Wouk, author of The Caine Mutiny and The Winds of War: “I only write when inspiration strikes,” he said. “Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.”
Believing your writing will never be good enough
Many writers — even professionals — fear that they are incapable of producing excellent work. The celebrated poet Maya Angelou was famous for her fear that, any day, literary experts would reveal her to be a fraud. Fortunately, she did not allow this misguided emotion to stop herself. Nor should you allow it to stop you.
What to do instead:
Instead of fretting about the quality of your work, concentrate on the quantity. The more often you do something, the better you will get at it. It’s useless to worry about what others think. Instead, concentrate on what you can do, knowing that there are always plenty of people who will be willing to decry you. And, in fact, the most eager critic may be your own internal editor. Acknowledge his or her remarks and then move beyond them, writing diligently, self-editing aggressively and getting professional guidance when you need it.
Editing while you write
I spent many years editing while I wrote, never understanding how self-destructive this process was. It made me write slowly and it filled me with angst. When I work with new clients, one of my first questions is: do you edit while you write? The vast majority of them tell me the answer is yes.
What to do instead:
Understand that the writing process consists of a number of discrete steps. If you try to do all these steps together, you’ll make writing far more difficult and complicated than it needs to be. This is why I am such a strong advocate of writing a crappy first draft before you do anything else. Breaking the editing-while-you-write habit is challenging but oh so worthwhile. I more than doubled my writing speed by doing this. Learn some tips for accomplishing the same thing, here.
Not taking a break before you edit
Driven by deadline, even people who can refrain from editing while writing, will typically launch immediately into editing upon finishing their draft. This, too, is a mistake.
What to do instead:
Here’s some good news: one of the key steps of writing involves doing absolutely nothing. You should schedule a brief incubation period after every piece of writing. Writers inevitably become too close to their subject matter and no longer see the gaps in their own work. By taking a break, however brief, you increase the odds that you will be able to review your writing with a fresh mind. If you have a very tight deadline, your break may need to be as short as 30 minutes. If that’s the case, I suggest you do something wildly different before editing. This might mean working on another project, talking to a colleague or friend or even going for lunch. If you have a more lenient deadline, take at least a day’s break if you can. And, finally, if you’re working on a long-form project — such as a book or a thesis — then I suggest you take at least six weeks before you start to edit a word
Not allowing enough time for editing
How do you allocate your writing time? I find that many people with bad writing habits tend to spend too much time writing and far too little time editing.
What to do instead:
In fact, editing is the single most important step of the writing process. If you want to become a better writer, there is only one way to do it: become a more vigourous self-editor. I recommend that you spend twice as long editing as you do writing. And, of course, being able to do this requires careful planning. That reverse-engineered schedule I suggested in the first tip is likely the only way you’ll be able to squeeze it in. Note that many students tend to leave essays until the night before they are due, meaning that they frequently don’t have any time for editing at all.
Failing to make writing a habit
Do you write in fits and starts? By that I mean, do you delay working on a big report until a few days before it’s due, and then devote six or more hours to it? This kind of non-habitual approach to writing makes the task far more uncomfortable than it needs to be.
What to do instead:
If you typically have a hard time getting started with writing, work on building a small habit. Even as little as five to 10 minutes per day is enough. There is no such thing as starting too small. In fact, it’s far better to start with a small goal, succeed at it and use that feeling of accomplishment to go on to greater success. Writing for five minutes a day, seven days a week is far more productive (and infinitely less stressful) than writing for fifty minutes, once a week.
What are your bad writing habits? We can all learn from each other so, please, share your thoughts with my readers and me in the “comments” section below. Anyone who comments on today’s post (or any others) by Nov. 30/16 will be put in a draw for a copy of Make What You Say Pay by Anne Miller. Please, scroll down to the comments, directly underneath the “related posts” links, below. Note that you don’t have to join the commenting software to post. See here to learn how to post as a guest.