The Most Important Tip For Great Writing
March 6, 2009 
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Whether you’re a marketer, blogger, PR professional or all of the above your success hinges on your ability to produce strong writing. And while there are plenty of people writing for a living, truly great writing is rare.
Written words have the ability to move us emotionally as much as any other form of self-expression. Outstanding writing produces a similar emotional response for me as I experience from music or visual arts.
Just like a musician isn’t going to create something revolutionary every time they sit down to compose, it’s difficult to produce those results consistently with writing. Yet some writers and musicians are able to consistently achieve amazing results. And, the way to achieve this for your own writing is actually simple enough to say in one sentence:
If it doesn’t move you emotionally, don’t write it.
I know that sounds like I’m oversimplifying it, but the truth is you can’t force writing about something you’re not genuinely interested in and expect it to move others. But if it’s something you are interested in and invest emotion behind it, you really can’t fail and your writing will show it.
Don’t love the subject matter or style you’re writing? You’re in trouble, because now it’s easy to find someone who does.
Someone who throws their soul behind their writing will always be more interesting to read than someone who is just going through the motions.
Good writing is a flow experience – not forced. It’s clear, concise and deliberate. It’s playful or impactful. It’s emotive and thought provoking. To the reader, it should be an effortless experience they lose themselves in.
The funny thing about this is you never really consider any of these things during your writing you read later and are truly proud of. That’s because your emotions took over and you lost yourself in the experience as your words became a natural extension of your thoughts. It was as easy for you to write as it was for others to read.
There are other tips for great writing, and certainly there are times to take a more objective stance behind your writing, but this is the most important tip to follow for creating the works you’re most proud of.
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image credit: my bloody self under CC share alike 2.0 license
Craig replied | Mar 6, 2009 (18 comments)
I think that is especially true about opinion pieces and rants. The best rants you can tell the person who wrote it is really passionate about the topic or ticked off in some manner. They are always amusing to read.
Debt-free College replied | Mar 6, 2009 (6 comments)
I agree with you…to a point. Sometimes, however, a blogger simply will not have anything that they want to write about, but, if they do not write, they will loss readers. At that point, I think that a blogger should write and just do their best.
Thanks,
Nate
Adam Singer replied | Mar 6, 2009 (594 comments)
@Debt-free College – maybe, maybe not. I don’t think readers will necessarily go because of lack of frequent content. Look at blogs like Skelliewag and Dosh Dosh. Their posts are infrequent, but the content is so good readers will stick around for it.
At the same time, their growth would be much higher if they posted more. You definitely don’t grow if you don’t add content, but you don’t necessarily lose readers. If you keep a news blog you might not be able to stick to the formula, but I publish approximately every other day and have no problems finding things at that frequency that move me to write about them.
Essay Writing Boy replied | Mar 7, 2009 (1 comment)
Writing needs a lot of passion some people writes about their inspirations some writes about their experiences some essay writer writes because of the job but the mos important of all you write because of passion because you love doing it.
Dave Sherohman replied | Mar 7, 2009 (1 comment)
“If it doesn’t move you emotionally, don’t write it.”
So, to what emotion did writing this post move you? Maybe I’m just missing it, but it doesn’t seem at all emotionally-charged to me.
If people only wrote things which emotionally moved them, some forms of writing – and very necessary forms! – would vanish entirely.
Chris replied | Mar 7, 2009 (1 comment)
You can say the same about art. I find my paintings “paint themselves” if I choose a subject that I’m interested in.
Adam Singer replied | Mar 7, 2009 (594 comments)
@Essay Writing Boy – yes, exactly!
@Dave Sherohman – my passion for helping my readers achieve success is what motivates me to write here every day. I don’t run ads here, I don’t make any money off this. My emotions produce logical things sometimes, I know, but trust me they are behind all my writing here. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t love it.
@Chris – yes I feel the exact same way when I make music.
Karl Foxley replied | Mar 9, 2009 (3 comments)
Great post and one that I agree with. It is so much easier to write with passion about something that you enjoy writing about…
The days I lack inspiration I tap into the art of blog surfing and see what other’s are writing about; I always end up finding something that I agree with or disagree with strongly enough to evoke a response (and an article). ;)
Thanks for posting.
Karl
Catherine Lockey replied | Mar 9, 2009 (63 comments)
Zen and the art of writing. You and your writing are one and the same – as you write you are not conscious of the act of writing but instead deeply part of the message. Sometimes my zen gets weary when I work on a technical piece. At these times writing becomes more of an intricate puzzle which I am challenged to piece together. In this case, I enjoy looking at the finished product knowing I created something useful.
lonelypond replied | Mar 10, 2009 (18 comments)
Passionate might be a more apt word than emotional, but I find that the blog posts I’m most revved up about when I’m writing are the ones that attract the most readers.
Adam Singer replied | Mar 11, 2009 (594 comments)
@Karl Foxley – that is a great strategy, something I do too.
@Catherine Lockey – beautifully said !
@lonelypond – the two feed off each other, IMO (passion and emotion)
lonelypond replied | Mar 16, 2009 (18 comments)
yes I agree they do but I tend to reserve the use of emotional as an adjective for more personal stuff and passionate for more out in the world issues — many people might reverse that. Looking them up quickly online, emotion seems to be the base of passion so perhaps better to use it on the less personal stuff…interesting, I’ll have to think about the difference.
Katie replied | Mar 24, 2009 (1 comment)
I think that writing is the most effective use of interaction and communication. In yor wording, you reveal your feelings and oppinions on a subject. If your writing doesn’t reveal at least a little of yourself, then I would suggest trying a new tecnique.
Danny Brown replied | Apr 7, 2009 (5 comments)
I think this is the key reason that books are invariably better than their movie iterations. The written word has the power to invoke the images and directions you want to go in – a more visual aspect (like a movie, or even a comic book) is someone else’s interpretation.
If words can open your mind up to possibilities and worlds that you would have otherwise missed, that’s the sign of a great writer to me.
Samantha replied | Apr 8, 2009 (1 comment)
Bravo! I totally agree.
Greg Dawe replied | Apr 27, 2009 (4 comments)
The Second Most Important Tip for Great Writing
I agree with the above, great writing needs to come from the heart. Once you’ve achieved that, does it stop there? In my experience, no. I read somewhere that every great writer knows that writing is re-writing. Again. And again. And again. Ad-infinitum if necessary. One draft, two, three? No, more like ten, twenty, thirty. It is the main difference between being published and not being published – or, with blogging, getting people to come back… again… and again…
However, care must be taken in the re-writing so as not to loose the original ‘feeling’ of the piece. That, for me at least, is the most difficult part of writing.