May 02, 2014
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5. LEARN ENGLISH
There are certain words that just scream amateur. Adding “ic” to words is icky. We”re not a capitalistic society or a communistic one and misogynistic is an ugly adjective. Misogynist will do just fine. Your whole goal as a writer is to be concise and trim the fat. The same goes for entire words. Why tell us “She thinks that she’s fat” when you could drop the “that”? Film editors cut every scene that isn”t relevant to the plot. You should too.
6. SPELL THEIR NAMES RIGHT
Maybe it’s the Internet age where going back and changing a name is easy, but I am consistently stunned by how few writers get people’s names right. This problem is especially common among liberals.
7. MAKE IT INTERESTING TO THOSE NOT INVOLVED
I always encouraged interviewers to stray from their subject and pull in the big picture. If you”re interviewing Lance Armstrong, we don”t need to know about the nuances of bicycle races. The fans are already hooked. Talk about the ethics of lying and how that plays out next to the millions of dollars he raised for cancer. Are we better off in the long run? That’s a question people with no legs are interested in. I always said to writers who did rap interviews that I want something my mom wants to read.
8. DON”T REPEAT WORDS
This is my biggest weakness and I thank God for all the editors who catch it. If you use a big word like verisimilitude, you should bid adieu to that word for several months. Even colloquialisms like “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” can only be used once in a blue moon. After you”re done, go back over your article and make sure you don”t use anything uncommon more than once. I wish Microsoft Word had an app for that. Maybe then I wouldn”t have written “summarizing” right after “summarize.”
9. LEARN TO TYPE
If you”re typing while still looking at your keyboard, you”re not a writer. You”re a typer. It took the Beatles 10,000 hours to get that good but it’s going to take you about ten times that many words before you can type as fast as you think. This is crucial to maintaining a flow that’s easy to read.
10. UTILIZE THE MAGIC THREEӬ
When you”re writing anything substantial you need to involve outside sources. I”m not talking about the Dewey Decimal System. I”m talking about drugs. Adderall gets it out, bourbon gives it balls, and pot makes it funny. Each of these states of mind gets an entire pass with no other drugs involved. When you look at it the next day you”ll see a ratty piece of prose with lots of spelling and grammar mistakes but that’s what a big breakfast and a large coffee is for. A good article is an amalgam of all the angles you”re capable of and you can”t do that all by yourself.
