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Dear community members,

Writing is often abused. Most of us get through life inflicting torturous sentences on our friends, families, readers and well wishers. Given below are 8 ideas for effective writing.

Give them a try.

• ​Start strong: Your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Go back and read my first sentence to this post. I rewrote it a dozen times. It makes you curious. That’s the key, says Dilbert creator Scott Adams.

• ​Write simply: Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham says, “The main reason I write simply is that it offends me not to. When I write a sentence that seems too complicated, or that uses unnecessarily intellectual words, it doesn't seem fancy to me. It seems clumsy.There are of course times when you want to use a complicated sentence or fancy word for effect. But you should never do it by accident.The other reason my writing ends up being simple is the way I do it. I write the first draft fast, then spend days editing it, trying to get everything just right. Much of this editing is cutting, and that makes simple writing even simpler.”

• ​Develop your idea by combining the external and the internal: Great writing doesn’t just happen, Sahitya Akademi Award winner Dr. Anamika explains. We need to learn to combine external observations with introspective insights.

• ​Combine surprise with inevitability: Great writing is often at the intersection of surprise and inevitability. When you read a memorable book or marvel at a work of art, it moves and delights you at the same time. Why? Because it strikes the unique balance between what is familiar and what we are curious about.

  • ​Unfamiliarity = Surprise (intuitive)

  • ​Familiarity = Inevitability (less intuitive) What is familiar is not inevitable. However, when familiarity and inevitability converge, great writing/art blossoms.

• ​Focus on clarity and persuasion: Writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it.

• ​Use active voice: Please use active voice unless there is a compelling reason not to. In almost all circumstances, active voice is a smarter choice.

• ​Remove fat: Scott Adams suggests, “Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.”

• ​Endings matter: Every story is a happy story if we know where to put an end to it. This is true for everything in life, including great writing.

​If you would like to explore the world of writing & publishing with us, you can register for the Writing Fellowship. We start on Nov 26, 20211.

Over the course of the fellowship, we will be hosting multiple authors and writers to talk about their writing journey. This includes, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Manu Pillai & Shrayana Bhattacharya.

If you need financial aid to join, you can fill this form.

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✍🏼 Read our founder Utkarsh Amitabh’s Harvard Business Review articles here Building Your Category of One, Should You Choose Passion Over Paycheck, How to Make Envy Work for You?, and The Right Way to Make a Big Career Transition

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