Vocabulary

Many people mistake being a writer for learning all sorts of fancy words. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A writer simply aims to pick the precise words needed to convey their story. A basic vocabulary is enough for 90% of prose, if you train yourself to access your full vocabulary.

Longer sentences and more complicated words are not “better” or “more professional”. No, they are worse! A truly skilled writer can convey a thought with a few short and simple sentences, while the amateur needs five paragraphs to get the same idea across.

As such, almost all the tips below have the same goal: make your writing shorter. Because shorter is almost always better.

Use simple tense

Write using simple present or simple past as much as you can. It’s more immediate, more active, and requires fewer words.

At first, it might seem a little too efficient. After applying this methodology to a few of your old stories, you’ll grow accustomed to it and realize how many words you can save!

Use active sentences

This is why I taught you to think about “subject + verb” before anything else. It makes sentences much shorter and easier to follow. The sentence is written from the viewpoint of the one doing the action.

Otherwise, many (beginning) writers are tempted to write “passive sentences”. The sentence is written from the viewpoint of the one receiving or undergoing the action.

Such sentences are always longer and more convoluted. Unless you want to stress the importance of the “victim”, or the subject is unknown, always pick active voice.

Single word, same meaning

A first draft often contains groups of words that have a better alternative: a single word with the same meaning.

Avoid very

The biggest culprit is the word very (and similar modifiers). Try to eliminate it as much as possible.

Avoid adverbs

The second biggest culprit are adverbs. These change the meaning of a verb. Sometimes, you really need them. But often there is a single verb that contains this modified meaning.

As you see, this mostly happens with adverbs that merely intensify rather than modify meaning. (Think of: just, certainly, entirely, completely, exactly, …) You want to cut those most of the time.

Similarly, verbs exist that need multiple parts, which have an alternative that is one word. Pick the one word, as it’s usually easier to read.

The most specific verb

This is related to the previous section, but not necessarily the same.

Some verbs are more “general use” than others. They can be used in many different contexts and sentences, whereas other words have a more precise meaning that only fits in a few situations. Whenever possible, pick the more precise one.

Positive Statements

Many times, writers create negative statements by adding the word “not” (or something similar) in there. This adds extra words! And it requires more effort from the reader, as they must invert the sentence. (It gets even worse when you do a double negative.)

When possible, keep your sentences positive.

Negative statements are fine to highlight contrast, denial or a character being very reserved. Sometimes, it just sounds more natural. As with all these rules, they can be broken, once you understand them.

Pick the shorter word

Yes, that’s how strict we are! Don’t even waste a syllable!

Many words have synonyms. Unless you have a good reason to pick longer options, pick the shortest one.

Again, this might seem extreme. If you, however, apply this to a whole first draft, you can easily save more than 20,000 words without actually changing any of the meaning. That is worth more, 99% of the time, than using a fancy word or phrase.

Cut vague or unnecessary details

And of course, the best option is to completely remove words that don’t need to be there.

The easiest ones to spot are unnecessary details. Parts of a sentence that communicate something the reader already knows or that say something irrelevant to the current story.

Vague language is harder to spot. It refers to words or phrases that do add meaning, but it’s a vague meaning. And we don’t like vagueness: either say something concrete or say nothing at all.

Extra spice

After writing your first draft, after following the guidelines above, you can think about adding that extra “spice” to your prose.

It’s easier to add spice to a dish that already tastes well, than to try and create a tasty dish with zero foundation.

You can play with words. You can find original, unique ways to say something. You can throw in some rare, unknown word here and there.

In this stage, you usually want to look out for clichés. Phrases that contain the first words any person (writer or not) would think of. When that happens, try to find synonyms, free associate, maybe create a word web until you find a more original expression.

Another technique is to imitate the style of another writer. Don’t be afraid to “be inspired” by another’s work: it’s one of the most powerful learning tools and you’d shoot yourself in the foot for not using it. As you attempt to do so, you’ll surely make mistakes or add your own flair. You might think you clearly “stole” someone else’s style, but nobody else will even notice as your work is so different.

A more specific tip is to be playful with your names. The names of characters/objects/locations will be reused more than anything else in a story. So pick something that …

• Isn’t too long
• Sounds really nice and fits the prose or setting
• Is clearly distinct from other names in the story
• And has more meaning (such as foreshadowing character, or a plot twist)

It always frustrates me a little when somebody writes a really good fantasy story set in medieval times, but the main character is just called “Mark”. And their name obviously appears thousands of times throughout the whole book. It doesn’t fit. It subtracts from the story. Simply picking any other name would be a massive improvement to the overall prose.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have those who believe fantasy names should be some incomprehensible mess like “Shac-ti-laka-bu-BONG”. Yeah, no, if you really want to go for that, give the character a really short nickname like “Shac”.