31 Ways to Improve Your Writing

You can almost always improve your writing by being more specific. Don’t write “I got in my car” when you can write “I got in my ‘65 Mustang.”

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Whenever you can center a story around people, do it. People Magazine is the world’s most popular magazine for a reason: people want to hear about people

You don’t have writer’s block. You’re just scared to say what you actually think. As my friend Jeremy Giffon says: “The best writing prompt for when I'm stuck is simply ‘be more honest.”

Concrete writing resonates. Abstract writing puts people to sleep. Bring your words to life by making them vivid and tangible. Use specific examples. Talk about things people can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear.

Removing excess words is good advice, but it ends up driving people to cut all the life from their writing until it becomes overly minimalistic. Don’t suck the life out of your writing in the name of grammar.

Many of your friends will be afraid to give you harsh feedback. Remedy that by asking: “What’s the 10% I need to keep, no matter what? A followup question: “What’s the 10% I’ll cut, if I absolutely had to cut?” (Got this from my interview with Tim Ferris