An Everyday Writing Tip - Get Rid of Useless Words

The two best ways to get better at writing are to read a lot and write a lot. Reading leads to a bigger vocabulary and a broader understanding of the techniques used by accomplished authors. Writing provides practice (obviously) at developing stronger stories, ideas, and style. With both of these cases, time is the key factor; as with any skill, the longer you've been at it, the better you'll be.

Still, there are a few easy things that will make your writing better instantly. These tips won't make your written work on par with the great classics, but they will allow your pieces to rise above the level of average, maybe even to good. The quality of writing is affected by many things, some harder to correct than others. However, the concepts I'm going to focus on are simple to implement, and will eventually seem like no-brainers once you compare your old work to your new stuff. For this article (hopefully it will be the first of a small series on good writing), I'm just going to focus on the one most powerful writing tip I can think of.

Get Rid of Useless Words

By eliminating words that don't add anything to your piece, you'll speed up the pace of whatever it is you are writing while making it more direct. Your readers will appreciate your effort here, as it saves them the trouble of reading things that don't add to the experience. Basically, if your story was a steak, you're giving them more meat and less fat.

The number one way to get rid of useless words is to cut out adjectives and adverbs that do little to strengthen the word they are modifying. For example, consider the following sentence:

"Megan ran quickly down the dirty street, rounded the corner at a lightning pace, and hurdled mightily over a big, brown puddle."

By trimming the excess modifiers out, the sentence will be more enjoyable to read. Also, stronger and more unique modifiers can be used instead of words such as "big", in order to give the sentence a little extra kick. Here's the new version:

"Megan ran down the cluttered street, zipped through the corner, and hurdled over an immense puddle."

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