Three tips to improve your writing rhythm

As a professional copywriter, not only do I do a lot of writing but I also look at a lot of writing. One of the things I've noticed that sets the good/great writers from the so so is rhythm.

What I mean by rhythm is how the writing sounds. The rhythm of the words and sentences. It's a subtle aspect of writing, one not normally talked about, but that doesn't lessen its importance.

Unfortunately, rhythm is also tough to teach (which is probably why it isn't talked about very much). It's something felt deep inside, like it is with music. It isn't as straight forward as pointing out a grammar error. What makes it tougher is that everyone has their own style and own unique rhythm. However, these three tips should get you started thinking about your own writing rhythm and how to improve it.

1. Watch out for long sentences. In fact, you might want to consider avoiding them altogether.

There's nothing inherently wrong with long sentences. And there are times where longer sentences are necessary (see next tip but note I said longer and not long). The problem is that long sentences have a tendency to turn into flabby sentences.

Think of a sentence as an eel. The longer it gets, the more slippery and elusive it becomes. Long sentences are sentences just waiting to slither far away and completely out of your control.

So what's going on with long sentences? One problem is they're tiring to read. By the time readers reach the end of a long sentence, they've most likely forgotten the subject/verb/point of the sentence. And they're probably too tired or too lazy or too busy to go back to the beginning of the sentence and sort the whole thing out.




Another problem is long sentences lack punctuation. Punctuation is a big part of rhythm. The start and stop of a period. The bated breath of an em-dash. Think of punctuation as your percussion section.

But when you write a long sentence, all you have to work with is the quiet sigh of the unobtrusive comma. Yes, they have their place. But it's a subtler instrument. (Think triangle rather than kettledrum.)

A good rule of thumb is to make sure a single sentence doesn¹t go over 30 words. If it does, strongly consider breaking it in two. Or three.

2. Vary sentence length. In music, a steady beat is usually a good thing. In writing, it's considered one of the deadly sins. (Okay, not really. But it still isn't good writing.)

If every sentence is the same length, your writing is going to get pretty dull pretty quick. You need short sentences, longer sentences (but not too long) medium length sentences and very short sentences.

How do you know if your sentences are all the same? Does your piece sound monotonous? Are you getting a sing-song voice in your head when you read it? Better take a closer look at those sentence lengths. They're probably all pretty close to being the same.

3. Sentence fragments are a good thing. Forget your fourth-grade English teacher. Forget that obnoxious green line in Microsoft Word telling you your grammar is wrong. In copywriting, as well as in many other forms of writing, sentence fragments are a lifesaver. Those fragments allow you to quickly and easily vary your sentence length. Plus, they can help your writing sound conversational. People talk in sentence fragments. Therefore, reading sentence fragments gives people the impression you're talking to them in your own voice and your own style.

So what's a sentence fragment? A sentence that isn't complete. It's missing something noun, verb, both. It's not a complete sentence.

 




 

Rhythm in writing is much more than just what's going on with your sentences. (Not that we've covered everything that goes wrong with sentences.) But it's a good place to start.

-----Creativity Exercises
-----Get in touch with your writing rhythm

Hearing things out loud is a good way to start getting in touch with your writing rhythm. You may have heard of this technique to find mistakes and yes, it's a good way to discover errors. But, this is also an excellent way to start getting in touch with your own unique rhythm.

Start by reading your own work out loud. If you've never done this before, try not to be too hard on yourself. Chances are you're going to discover all sorts of problems including too long sentences and paragraphs where all the sentences are the same length. Make a note of what needs fixing.

Once you fix it, read it out loud again. Then read it the original way. Listen to the difference. Even better, try to feel the difference  deep inside, in your gut. Our gut is  an excellent rhythm sensor.

You should also read out loud things you haven't written. And read a variety of things  plays, novels, direct mail pieces, newspaper articles, Web sites, poems. Read bad writing and read writing that's so beautiful your knees buckle. Listen to the rhythm while you're reading. How does it make you feel? More importantly, how does it make your gut feel? Your gut will never lie to you learn to trust it.

Copyright Michele Pariza Wacek.
Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She offers two free newsletters that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.writingusa.com

, , ,

Video – Ed-tech

 Advice about leading successful ed-tech initiatives ...

Video – Ways to Reduce Your Stress

Read more

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything

Influencer
by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler

The power to influence others is probably the most important skill in management and leadership. Unfortunately, its development is nowhere near as advanced as it should be. In this interesting, easy-to-read guide to building one's ability to influence others and to thereby create constructive change, the authors provide an essential toolbox for all of us. Building upon the work of Albert Bandura, Stanley Milgram, and other psychologists who specialized in social learning theory, the authors of Influencer: The Power to Change Anything went hunting for people, all over the world, who were able to accomplish major tasks by influencing people to change their behavior. The authors then analyzed what these expert influencers did, so as to give the reader ideas on how to exert influence in more effective ways. The authors also included several examples of major efforts to bring about change that failed dramatically, and gave their view of what was missing in those change campaigns.

Learn how some of the world’s most powerful influence masters have risen to the top by employing a relatively simple set of practices and attitudes. Eric Conger takes us easily from Bangladesh to San Francisco and South Africa, deftly placing us in the presence of some of the finest change agents of our time. His charming and authoritative voicing amplifies the intrinsic power of this work.

So, what did the authors find? Most persistent problems that seem immune to change efforts, have one, or both, of two factors in common: the people involved do not feel capable of making the change; the people involved do not feel that the proposed change would be an improvement. In other words, the factors are ability and motivation. The authors also looked at three different levels, for each problem: the individual, the social group, the environment of the situation. Thus, if you want to influence people to make a change, there are six basic loci for change input: individual ability (i.e., skill training), individual motivation (e.g., incentives), group ability (e.g., increase networking), group motivation (e.g., modeling and healthy competition), environmental assets (e.g., make the necessary components more readily available), and environmental feedback (e.g., improve the consequence system for success and for failure).

In order to explain how these six different modes of, or targets for influence, can be affected, the authors use a handful of examples to illustrate what they mean. They keep returning to these examples, and the reader gets to know them well. The two best ones are probably the Delancey Center in California, where oft-convicted drug-abusing felons are helped to step out of that way of living and, with a high success rate (according to this book) become employed, law-abiding, drug-free citizens; and the Carter Center's efforts to eradicate a horrible parasitic infection that was once widespread in Africa and Asia, called the guinea worm. By repeatedly returning to these examples, the reader not only understood the complexity of the approach needed, but also how it was done, without tremendous cost, using all six of the influence factors.

The book is written in a friendly, almost familiar, conversational tone. While that might not fit every non-fiction book, it worked well here, as another example of how to present information in a listener-friendly manner. It was also quite clear that the authors believe in what they say, passionately.

“Far and away one of the best business books of the year.”

Read more ... or go straight to  Amazon

Book Review – Alphabet of dinosaurs

by Barbie Heit Schwaeber Illustrated by Thomas Buchs and Karen Carr

From the reviews

From Ankylosaurus to Zigongosaurus, children will delight in learning about dinosaurs and prehistoric life. Witty rhymes describe many species of dinosaurs, including where they roamed, what they ate and their physical characteristics.

Soundprints has paired up with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History to produce this book

The read-along CD of the book opens with an original song about dinosaurs, setting the tone for what follows.  The song is largely a listing of the alphabet and words covered in the book.

Read more or go to the record at  Amazon

, ,

Book Review – 10 Days to More Confident Public Speaking

  by

The Princeton
  Language Institute ,

Lenny Laskowski
 

" This book has the tools you need to become a relaxed, effective and commanding public speaker."

Read more or go direct to its entry at Amazon

,

Wake me when it’s over: A guide to no-nap presentations

It’s 9:30 in the morning and you’ve made it to the third presentation of today’s marketing meeting. The presenter is pretty much reading word for word from a deck of 40 slides, which are mostly densely worded, bulleted items with an occasional chart or graph thrown in. You have no interest in the topic, and to keep from falling asleep during the next 30 minutes, you are taking this opportunity to proofread some documents for a pressing deadline.

(more ...)

Philip Pullman’s choice

Times Online has published Philip Pullman's essential reading list
"40 favourite books selected for the Waterstone's Writer's Table"

You can read the list here and read the reasons for his choices here. 

, ,

Thought for the Day

"The value of a life does not lie in what we take, but in what we give ... (and) of course it takes a certain courage to be generous in a world of thieves."

Stephen Downes

Visual literacy

This is a visual display of the different types of information presentation.  Deigned as a periodic table, it is well organised and can be used for all sorts of purposes - presentations, planning and information literacy come to mind.
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html