Writing With Flair

For your convenience and reference, here is a summary of key lectures

in the course.

Tools, Not Rules

The tactics in this course will give you immense power over how
you express yourself in writing.

But view the principles as tools not rules; there will be exceptions.

A simplicity tactic, for instance, says to avoid official language. But

formal words may allow you, sometimes, to be tactful or
diplomatic.

Occasionally, you may also need to sacrifice one ingredient for

another.

For instance, you may repeat something in order to stress a point

(clarity), even though a simplicity tactic says to avoid repetition.

Write With Integrity

In general, avoid pretentious language. Be aware of your motive

for using pompous words or phrases. Don’t do it just to impress.

Pretentious language can make you seem insecure more than

sophisticated.

You gain more respect when you say what you mean authentically.
Yearn To Connect

Strive to be understood by readers.

Don’t use phrases or terminology they may not get, or that may
alienate them.

As far as possible, write with your readers’ opinions, assumptions

and worldview in mind.

Read back your writing from a reader’s point of view to make sure
nothing you say will confuse or baffle them.

Know Your Intent

Get clear on your main purpose when writing anything.

Do you want chiefly to inform, persuade, entertain, educate,

transform, motivate, support or empathise with your readers?

Having a clear purpose helps to refine both the content and tone
of your writing.

A strong intent gets infused with your writing at a deep level and
helps it reverberate.

Aspire For Beauty

Consider yourself an artist striving to create beauty in your writing.

Weigh each word, sentence and paragraph, as well as every bit of

punctuation, for its contribution to the overall beauty of your prose.
Simplicity, clarity, elegance and evocativeness each contributes to
beauty in a unique way.

Balance The Ingredients Like An Artist

Balance the four ingredients artfully, which can sometimes mean

trading off one for another.

Always consider the context so you pick the appropriate

ingredients and tactics to apply.

A formal resignation letter, for instance, may tilt less toward

evocativeness than, say, a passionately expressed job application.

Don’t Be Obsessed With Perfection

Don’t become too obsessed with making your prose perfect; it can
stall you.

A piece of writing can rarely reach perfection because most of us

write to deadlines.

Instead, aim to produce the best writing you can in the time
available.

The Beauty Of Simplicity

Simple writing is easier to comprehend and punchier than

bureaucratic, convoluted and longwinded prose.

Keep your writing light and fast by sticking with familiar language
and cutting excess words.
Fancy, Flowery & Official Language

Prefer plain language to needlessly official, flowery or fancy

expressions.

Deconstruct sentences that sound too bureaucratic and try stating

the ideas more plainly.

However, be careful not to sound disrespectful, insensitive or

slangy.

Economical (“Tight”) Writing

Don’t waste words — try to keep your writing as tight as possible.

Ask of each word whether it is useful and necessary for conveying

the idea.

Redundant Words

Watch for commonly twinned words that carry the same meaning.

Phrases like “the sum total” and “an unexpected surprise” create
excess fat in your writing.

Doing away with redundant words makes your prose lighter and
more punchy to read.

More Implied Words

Redundancy can occur in subtler ways than in twinned words.

Look out for words or expressions that duplicate, or imply, others in

the same sentence.
Keep only those words that do important work for a sentence.

Long Words

George Orwell famously said never use a long word when a short
one will do.

You don’t have to avoid long words altogether, but always consider
whether they do the best job of conveying an idea.

Short words often sound less pretentious; they can also be faster to
comprehend than longer ones with a similar meaning.

Occasionally, a longer word may capture your meaning better or

sound more elegant and evocative.

Careless Repetition

Needlessly repeating points can make your writing look

amateurish.

Repetition is okay to stress or reinforce key points (for clarity), or

else to create poetry (elegance) and drama (evocativeness) in your
writing.

Unconscious repetition can mean you haven’t organised your

points well enough.

In general, aspire to make a unique point in every sentence.

Rambling (Saying Too Much)

Don’t give readers more information than they need to appreciate
or get a point.

In particular, avoid over-illustrating or over-explaining points — in

other words, rambling.

A slick writer cuts off the “information tap” when a point has been
sufficiently made.

Double Negatives

Double negatives force readers to turn sentences the right way up

in order to fully get them.

Avoid giving readers headaches by pointlessly overcomplicating

things.

Occasionally, a double negative will capture an important nuance

(clarity) or contribute to the rhythm (elegance) or tone
(evocativeness) of a piece of writing.

Multiplying Entities

Don’t add more descriptive words than necessary for readers to be

able to identify a company, organisation or other entity.

Adding too many descriptors makes sentences slower and heavier

than they need to be.

Overstretching Thoughts

Brief sentences usually make your writing easy to follow.

Watch out for excessive subclauses or asides that may give readers
a headache.

Don’t string too many thoughts together in a sentence, making it

too long to read in one “breath.”

Unnecessary Ceremony

Don’t pointlessly capitalise words like “Government” and “Central

Bank,” or litter your copy with unfamiliar acronyms.

Visual distractions yank a reader out of the reading experience.

An exception may when you want to evoke deep respect for a

person, an office or a deity (e.g., the President, His Excellency,
God).

Excessive Punctuation

Don’t litter sentences with unnecessary commas.

Use punctuation sparingly, to help readers navigate your prose or

improve the rhythm of the writing.

Avoid putting quote marks around words that don’t need them; it
creates just another distraction.

The Beauty Of Clarity

Take responsibility for making sure your writing is always

abundantly clear.
Strive to prevent readers from getting confused by anything you
say.

If your ideas are unclear to begin with, applying the other

ingredients becomes virtually useless.

Fuzzy Thinking

Make it totally clear what you’re trying to say, rather than lazily
leaving readers to figure it out.

Many ideas will fall onto the page with some fuzziness, so take the
trouble of getting them into sharp focus.

A fuzzy idea, especially at the start of a piece of writing, can muddy

all that follows.

Missing Links

Occasionally, the causal link between two ideas in a sentence isn’t

strong enough to make immediate sense (e.g., “Plunging coal
exports have led to lower government revenue this year.”)

You can know when ideas are too far apart because, when reading
a sentence back, your mind will momentarily go blank.

If that happens, supply the “missing link” by spelling out the

relationship between the two ideas better — so readers can
instantly get it.

Out-Of-Focus Ideas

A properly focused idea clicks as you read it.

Sentences can get out of focus when they’re badly punctuated —
such as when a comma improperly links two independent clauses.

Sentences lose focus when key information is missing (e.g.,

“Looking into the distance, a tall building came into view.”)

Order the various parts of a sentence to create the greatest

certainty as to its meaning.

Misplaced Modifiers

Take special care with words that modify others in a sentence (e.g.,
“Martin enquired about the concert last week” is potentially
ambiguous).

Place modifying words so there can be no doubt about the bit of

the sentence they modify.

Ambiguity

Ambiguity, which comes in many forms, can sap authority from your
writing.

Identify it by considering, in context, whether anything you say may

be taken to mean something different.

Improve your chances of spotting ambiguity by reading back your

work through the eyes of a first-time reader.

Careless Comparisons

Sharp comparisons make your writing stronger.

Make sure the things you’re comparing are clearly defined and
differentiated from the outset.

You can become more relaxed about continuing a comparison

once you’ve set it up clearly.

Clumsy Contrasts

A sentence with a lot of detail can obscure a fundamental contrast

you want to express.

Dashes are great for making sharper distinctions when commas

don’t do a good enough job of separating contrasting ideas.

It may also help to break a sentence into two seperate ones to

make a contrast sharper.

Dubious Distinctions

Consider whether descriptive words in a sentence are distinct

enough to be worth using together — for example, “The painting
was striking, impressive and breathtaking.”

It’s better to use words with sharply differing meanings — unless a

particular combination of words sounds especially elegant or
evocative.

Curly Writing

Avoid saying straightforward things in a roundabout way.

A reader should never have to unravel your sentences in order to

get them.
Deliver points “head on” so readers can make immediate sense of
them — unless there’s an artistic reason not to.

Jargon & Buzzwords

Many jargon words and buzzwords aren’t specific enough, and can
therefore cloud your meaning.

Slick writing is usually precise and meaningful.

Impenetrable jargon — as one sees in many resumes, cover letters,

blogs, books, reports and press releases — can be tiresome and
off-putting to readers.

It’s better to use expressions that nail precisely what you mean.

Mixing Tenses

Mixing up tenses harms the clarity of your writing and can give it an
amateur look and feel.

Try to align tenses beautifully to prevent sending a reader’s mind

into a spin.

You can go a long way with common sense when aligning your
tenses.

It Versus They

“It” is commonly used to refer to entities such as companies,

organisations and countries.

“They” is frequently used to refer to sports teams and pop groups.

In your writing, don’t switch between calling the same entity an “it”
and also a “they” — it looks clumsy.

This, That & The

Careless use of “this” and “that” can leave readers unsure of what
you’re referring back to.

Add enough context after such words to prevent possible

misunderstanding.

“That” sometimes works better than “this” when referring to

something previously said; “this” can often have a forward-looking
tilt.

However, the words “this” (and also “the”) can sometimes be an

elegant way of referring back to something. Weigh it up.

“That” tends to be overused in general; consider cutting back on

it, especially if the word appears more than once in a sentence.

Removing Clutter

Clutter is basically information that gets in the way of the main

point in a sentence.

Don’t pack so much detail into a sentence that the signal gets
blurred — you don’t have to say everything at once.

Consider moving nonessential information out of a sentence if it

helps make a key point sharper.
The secondary information can be moved further down as
standalone points, or even as subclauses in other sentences.

The Beauty Of Elegance

The beauty of elegance is that it makes writing flow well.

You can infuse this quality into your writing in several ways.

You could arrange the main blocks of ideas — or sections — so

they flow best into each other.

Elegance also comes from giving better rhythm to the flow of

sentences and paragraphs.

Elegance makes simple and clear writing even more beautiful.

Presentational Elegance (Or “House Style”)

Style rules give elegance to your writing, making it look more

polished and professional.

Create your own house style for consistency — considering

everything from how you write headings and refer to book titles to
what type of dashes and quote marks you use.

A house style gives your writing a brand identity that readers may
eventually recognise.

Narrative Elegance

Writing flows well when it’s arranged nicely.

Identify the sections in a narrative, then link them up elegantly to
create the best flow of ideas from start to finish.

Stray Thoughts

You may find points in your writing that don’t seem to belong
where they are.

Deal with such “stray thoughts” by better spelling out their link to
the narrative section they’re in.

If that’s difficult, perhaps the point is not relevant enough to that

part of the narrative; maybe it fits better elsewhere.

Elegant Paragraphs

There are no “rules” around when to switch paragraphs.

But paragraphs can help readers navigate your writing by creating

logically ordered blocks of information — for instance, reflecting
meaningful shifts in the flow of information.

Because paragraphs indicate a longer pause than merely shifting to

a new sentence, they can also be used to create rhythm in a piece
of writing.

Sometimes, it may just feel elegant to transition to a new

paragraph, even when there’s no logical reason for doing so.

Don’t confuse paragraphs with narrative sections: a section is often

too long to fit into a single paragraph.

Timing, Rhythm & Musicality

Rhythm in writing is hard to define, but it’s something most of us
can feel.

Aim to bring some kind of musicality to your writing, even if it’s just
to stop it sounding clunky.

It may help to to break the writing down into beats in order to

identify its poetry or musicality.

Look out for structurally similar sentences that sound monotonous

together, and vary them for better rhythm.

Elegant Transitions

Sometimes, a sentence transitions awkwardly into another.

It can happen when a writer intends to contrast two things but

does so weakly (e.g., “My dad warned me never to go skydiving. It
was the best experience of my life.”)

To make such transitions elegant, add a phrase that links the two
ideas together better (e.g., “My dad warned me never to go
skydiving. I’m glad I ignored him, because it was the best
experience of my life.”)

Parallel Ideas

Sentences are inelegant when ideas don’t stack up in a parallel

way.
Clearly distinguish items in a list that have a different quality from
each other (e.g., attributes of a person versus their likes/dislikes)
rather than inelegantly lumping them together.

Ensure even when listing stuff of a similar type that any verbs align
in a neat, parallel way.

Word Echoes

It can sound inelegant when a substantive word is repeated in

proximity.

An echo is most inelegant when it happens in the same sentence;

some writers try to avoid them even in adjoining sentences.

Word echoes are usually possible to fix with a bit of sense and
creativity.

Take care any effort to remove a word echo doesn’t harm the clarity
of an idea.

The Beauty Of Evocativeness

Evocativeness is the quality that fires up a reader’s imagination or

moves their emotions.

In other words, it’s the quality that makes writing stimulating.

Evocativeness gives an extra dose of flair to writing is already

simple, clear and elegant.

Creating Variety
Sameness is boring, which is why adding variety to your writing is
an easy way to make it more evocative.

Look out for repetitive sentence structures and the frequent use of
identical words.

Try to pack in as much variety as possible at each of those levels to

create more lively writing.

Consider keeping an inventory of words commonly repeated in the

writing you do, to help make it less dry.

Adding Freshness

Be sensitive to overused phrases that lack originality.

Many cliches are used so often that they’ve become stale and
boring to read.

Replace with fresher expressions or imagery if you can — otherwise

state what you mean without relying on hackneyed phrases.

Dramatic & Forceful Writing

Hedging words, like “somewhat,”“arguably” and “I think,” can

weaken the dramatic impact of your writing.

Such words are sometimes used to sound posh, but they can make
you seem unsure of yourself.

Removing them can add dramatic tension to your writing,

prompting readers to sit up and take notice.
Use hedging words when there is genuine doubt about what you’re
saying, for reasons of tact, or deliberately to convey a tone of
humility.

Occasionally, some filler words can make your writing sound more
friendly or intimate.

Arousing The Senses

Abstract sentences lacking any imagery are boring to read.

Aim to create pictures as often as possible by zooming in on the

players and action.

Whenever possible, let readers “see” something happening.

You can add vibrancy to your prose with words that stimulate other
(non-visual) senses, such as hearing and touch (e.g., “creaking from
the weight,” “mounting strain…”).

Reversing Into Sentences

Some writers back into sentences too often, slowing down the way
a picture forms in a reader’s mind (e.g., “To help make his father’s
life easier, Manuel volunteered to do the washing up.”)

Our minds process information more quickly when the active part
comes first (e.g., “Manuel volunteered to do the washing up to
help make his father’s life easier.”)

It’s not at all wrong to reverse in, and doing so sparingly can even
contribute to the elegance of your writing.
Passive Sentences

A passive sentence is one where the focus is on the thing acted

upon, rather than the actor (e.g., “The flag was hoisted by John”
instead of “John hoisted the flag.”)

Sentences written passively make pictures harder to form — and

are thus usually less evocative.

Keeping sentences active helps pictures form instantly, sparing

readers from having to do any mental juggling.

In exceptional cases, a passive sentence may aid clarity — where

you don't know or don’t want to reveal the actor, or when it’s useful
for some reason to make something else the subject of a sentence.

A passive sentence may occasionally contribute to rhythm

(elegance) and to one’s artistic expression (evocativeness) in, say, in
a novel.

Voice, Tone & Character

Avoid “vanilla” writing that has no colour or flavour, unless the

situation demands it.

Experiment with writing “in character” to give your prose better

tone and charisma.

Make the voice sound as authentic as possible, unless you’re

deliberately being playful.