11 Rules for Writing
Throughout my time in the English program at NDSU I’ve learned quite a few rules of writing. Having taken a variety of classes, I’ve gotten to write in many different genres and have picked up on some tips that I believe help me to produce more effective writing. Being exposed to many genres of writing, I was wary of composing a definitive list of rules for writing, knowing that each genre truly deserves its own set of rules. Instead of preparing many separate sets of rules, I decided upon rules that are much more conceptual in nature and can easily be applied to most any writing situation. As such, I feel this list would provide a solid foundation for a student who is learning to write.
1. Know your genre
2. Avoid clichés
3. Clarity is key
4. Over description is death
5. Know your audience
6. Know your purpose
7. Don’t be pedantic
8. Check your facts
9. Dialogue should sound like dialogue
10. Allow others to read your work
11. Revise
1. Know your genre
- Each genre will have its own unique rules. In fact, some of the rules contained herein will not explicitly apply to all genres.
- If you don't understand your genre, you may make mistakes that confuse your reader or hinder your credibility.
- Ready for the cliché? Excellent. Don't be afraid to break the rules—they can be soooo borrrring.
2. Avoid clichés
- They are also boring, and often so overused that their meaning is unclear.
3. Clarity is key
- Don’t be unclear, unless ambiguity is your goal. Either way, do your best to make sure your ideas are communicated. Writing is communication.
4. Over description is death
- Too much description will inevitably bore readers into not finishing what it is you want to say, because they surely just want you to get to it, and are probably hoping you’ll move on to the next thing any time now. But, since you’re continuing to let them down and not moving on, they’re starting to lose hope. Unfortunately, even though you’re getting to the deeply important nuance of what it is you’re trying to say, your readers have already skipped ahead or, worse yet, stopped reading all together.
- All that said, be enthusiastic, give your readers enough to be clear and fulfill your purpose, but also leave out enough that they still want to fill in the gaps. Sometimes this means only giving them an impression.
5. Know your audience
- Understanding what your audience already knows and believes should help you appeal to them. Assuming too much might lead you to bore, confuse, or even insult your reader.
- Consider what they are likely to skip over. Does it really need to be included? Might it be appropriate to move this information to an appendix or footnote? If you really need them to read it, how can you foreground the information for them and make it interesting enough that they won’t skip it?
6. Know your purpose
- Are you trying to inform your audience? Entertain them? Persuade them?
- Consider the situation you are writing in and with regards to. Would it be effective to engage in more than one purpose with your writing?
7. Don’t be pedantic
- Readers often love to learn new words. If you can work them into your writing, that’s great. But if it seems you’re just trying to show off your vocabulary, you might alienate your audience.
8. Check your facts
- Use reliable sources, and do what you can to verify them. Make sure you get the story surrounding a quote, because lack of context can significantly change what is implied.
9. Dialogue should sound like dialogue
- Read it out loud as you write it; if it doesn’t sound natural as you write it, it will sound artificial when others read it.
- Be cautious when employing dialect. If you are unfamiliar with the dialect you want to write in, you’re likely to mess it up and your audience is likely to notice. Once you start writing in dialect, you might find difficult to stop; be conscious of how much is too much for your audience.
10. Allow others to read your work
- They can help you with spotting if you’ve failed to adhere to any of these rules. After all, they have a fresh perspective and you might have preconceptions about your own work.
- Sideshadowing, or annotating your writing with comments, questions, or worries that you’d like the reader to consider, can help them provide more focused feedback.
- Your writing doesn’t have to be perfect; you just have to try to improve. Sometimes the best way to improve is to write something imperfect and learn from it.
11. Revise
- While it is important to consider what others think and say about your work, you do not, and likely should not, use all of their suggestions. It is your writing, not theirs, and somethings are best left unchanged.
- Write what you’re enthusiastic about, but keep in mind your audience and whether certain feedback will help you communicate better with your audience.
- Revision can include small or large scale changes; moving sections of text around into a more understandable or aesthetic order; deleting or adding entire sections, or perhaps just one perfect word or punctuation.
- Completely starting over is a form of revision, but should not be taken lightly. Depending on your situation, you will have to weigh the benefits of starting over with your own motivation to complete the work and your time constraints for finishing the project.