More Better Writing, Part 2
Ten tips to better writing

by Christopher Meeks

In our last episode, Rocky was flying high over Pottsylvania, and Bullwinkle, tied to a railroad track, was pleading with Boris and Natasha, who hate "moose unt squirrel." Or was that another column? That's right—this one's about writing well, and how to do so. I gave my first two rules in my first column. Here are a few more good-writing rules:

• There is no bad first draft. Don't be afraid to start, just start. You can fix it later.
• Fix your spelling and grammar. Yes, these things are boring, but important.
• Create a vibrant opening. Your first paragraph sets the tone and makes the reader want to go on.
• Don't worry so much—writing is subjective. You can't please all of the people all of the time, so don't even try.
• Playing on the Internet is just keeping you away from what you need to do. With computers, the days of sharpening pencils is over. Even so, sometimes, indeed, spending time in cyberspace can help.
• Use proper format. Format, schmormat? Hardly. The most obvious key to professionalism is to look professional.
• Use proper tense. For whatever reason, more and more writers are losing control of their tenses (let alone their senses).
• Use the comma correctly.
• Rewrite. As my own mentor always said, "Writing is rewriting." I've come to learn that the first draft is about playing and trying things out.
• Create a dynamic ending.

1) There is no bad first draft. Just as Barbara Woodhouse believes, there are no bad dogs, there are no bad first drafts. That's because first drafts are for you alone, a place where you allow yourself to make mistakes while you let your creativity flow.

2) Fix the spelling and grammar. Spelling is important, contrary to some kind aunt or elementary teacher who may have said, "Spelling is no big deal—it's the ideas that count." Spelling counts. It always has. Not spelling well gives the mistaken notion that you are either dumb or don't care. Some readers feel, "If he (or she) doesn't care, why should I?"

3) Create a vibrant opening. In whatever you write, from e-mails and memos to speeches and business letters to plays and misdemeanors, your first paragraph sets the tone and makes the reader want to go on. Face it—we all have too much to read. Making your reader want to continue with your piece versus going onto the next is always a challenge. You can do so, as I said last month, by letting go. Toy with your words. Remember my mantra: There is no bad first draft. You can always erase later.

Some people get stuck because they want to write a boffo (Hollywood slang for "smashing") opening before they write anything else. But the truth is that it's often easier to write your opening after you've written everything else! So don't be afraid to write a basic opening, then write your entire piece, then go back and use what you've learned from writing the whole piece to rewrite the opening so it's stronger, more concise, and better reflects the content.

Remember, not everyone will read everything you write, but most people will read at least a paragraph or two. So, if you can summarize your most important points in the first few paragraphs, you can be more sure that people will actually read them.

4) Don't worry so much—writing is subjective. In the Bobby McFerrin vein of "Don't worry—be happy," writers need to remember that writing is subjective. Siskel and Ebert think, for instance, that Babe—Pig in the City is one of 1998's best films. Yet a reviewer in San Francisco, Jan Wahl, thinks it's one of year's worst—a terror for kids. Some people will adore what you write. Others won't get it at all. The trick is to get most people, or at least your own select audience, to read and understand what you have to say. You can't please all of the people all of the time, so don't even try. If you do, you'll water down your writing to the point where no one likes it anymore.

5) Playing on the Internet is just keeping you away from what you need to do. With computers, the days of sharpening pencils is over. So what do we do now to "prepare" for the writing act? Simple: We have the Internet to suck up time and make us think we're being productive when we should be writing. Truth be told, I can be a procrastinator, too. I did find the following on the Internet (once again it's uncredited, so if you know who wrote it, please tell me so I can give them credit—the moral here is if you write something and want credit, make sure your name is attached to it!), which shows that sometimes, indeed, spending time in cyberspace can help.

"Rules for Writing Real Good"

• Don't use no double negatives.
• Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents.
• Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
• About them sentence fragments.
• When dangling, watch your participles.
• Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.
• Don't write run-on sentences they are hard to read.
• Don't use commas, that aren't necessary.
• Try to not ever split infinitives.
• Its important to use your apostrophe's correctly.
• Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.
• Correct speling is esential.
• Eschew ostentatious erudition.
• Avoid cliches like the plague.
• Don't take lists like this seriously!

It's difficult to sit at a blank screen and create words, sentences, paragraphs, and the whole enchilada, and not make mistakes. But when everything is working, writing can be fantastic. When you're hot, you're hot, and the joy of writing well is as good as sex. In fact, some writers abstain from sex to put all their creative energies into their words. I don't recommend this approach personally. Hemingway said that the best way to appreciate art was on an empty stomach, but when I try that, the grumbling I hear is just distracting. So it's up to you.

6) Use proper format. The most obvious key to professionalism is to look professional. If you're writing a business letter, for instance, use a business letter format that includes your return address, the date, the recipient's name and address, a salutation ("Dear Whatsyourname:"), the crux of what you want to say in a page or less, and a closing. Memos are a slightly different format with the word MEMO at the top. Reports, submissions, newsletters, grant proposals, short stories, stage plays, screenplays—they all have their own formats. Find the proper format and use it.

Some beginning writers feel their creativity will outshine the need for format, schmormat. "I'll be the Thomas Alva Edison of the business memo." Once you make a name for yourself in your field, you can have the luxury of writing in whatever new format you want. Until then, realize that whatever form you're writing in, you're putting yourself up for inspection. If you have the wrong format, spell poorly, and use incorrect grammar, you're simply wasting people's time, reflecting poorly on yourself, and probably miscommunicating your main points anyway.

For more information on this subject, you might read Writing for Business Success; Letters Memos Reports Submissions by Rob Siedle ($19.95, Prentice Hall). Or, for business letters alone, go to the Internet (ignore rule 5).

For Web pages: If you're not sure what format to use for the text on your Web pages, look at other Web pages that are similar to yours. Web pages can contain virtually any kind of written content, from a personal note to your readers, to a highly constructed article. The kind of text you're writing should determine the style and format.

7) Use proper tense. For whatever reason, more and more writers are losing control of their tenses (let alone their senses). Perhaps it's because when we tell stories orally these days, we go into a present tense mode. "So there I was at the car wash, minding my own business, there on the Group W bench, when Sheila walks up to me in a to-die-for sheer blouse and slaps me hard on the face. What could I do? I swallowed my contact lens..."

That works fine in talking. What I'm seeing in formal writing, however, is that people are slipping into present tense when they mean to be in past tense. They switch unintentionally in midstream, as in, "I went into the storeroom. I found the missing box, and I'm looking through it. Before long, I have the registration right in my hands." At "I'm looking," the writer has switched tenses, from past to present. A no-no. Look smart and keep to your tenses.

8) Use the comma correctly.By far, the most common confusion is when to use a comma in a sentence with a conjunction ("and," "or," "so," or "but"). A comma is placed before a conjunction if the conjunction introduces an independent clause. If the clause is dependent, then there is no comma.

You may wonder what's a dependent or independent clause? An independent clause can be a sentence in its own right, with a subject and verb. A dependent clause cannot be a complete sentence. Note the use or lack of a comma in the following correct examples.I ran home and then to the store.
I ran home, and then I ran to the store.
I don't like him or you.
I don't like Jim, and I don't like you.

If you want to learn 10 more simple usage elements, get Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. It's thin, wonderful, inexpensive, and in the bookstore.

9) Rewrite. As my own mentor always said, "Writing is rewriting." I've come to learn that the first draft is about playing and trying things out. You can be daring in a first draft. As you start a second draft, you reread and analyze your first draft. Often, you'll suddenly see things you didn't as you wrote the first draft. You may even envision the way you really want your work to be. I love rewriting. It's where "good" can become "great."

The ideal way to rewrite is to let the first draft sit for a minimum of a day. If it's a long work, 20 pages or more, then a week is better. The point is to let a little distance come between you and the work so you can be more objective.

What will happen is that as you read, you'll say to yourself, "Cripes! I wrote that?" And you delete. Or as you read, you may come up with new and better ways to say something. It's even a good idea to pretend someone else wrote it, so you don't feel as if you're messing up "your baby."

You may be just as creative as in the first draft, but this time you're working with a clearer purpose. You know how it ends, and, as you're reading and rewriting, you can spend time distilling sentences. That is, you're finding ways of saying the same thing with fewer words.

Pare down. Replace passive sentences (such as "The game was clinched by Jim") with active ones ("Jim clinched the game"). Use active verbs ("Julia strode to the stadium" vs. "Julia went to the stadium"). In other words, paint with some color.

As you come to the end, if you're writing business correspondence, don't simply restate your beginning. The whole point is to lead the reader to a concluding element that is fresh. You've given reasons and arguments, now, boom, "This is the point."

To be a better writer is like becoming a better juggler. You have to do it a lot (two balls, three balls, four), you give yourself bigger and bigger challenges (balls to bananas to chain saws), and then you add a little fire. The only magic is that you are persistent, determined, and focused.

10) Create a dynamic ending. I just did.

About the author

Christopher Meeks writes for and teaches creative writing at CalArts, and he also teaches English at Santa Monica College. He has published four nonfiction children's books and written many short stories.  His stories have been published most recently in The Santa Barbara Review, The Southern California Anthology, Rosebud, and upcoming in Writers' Forum. His first full-length play, Suburban Anger, was mounted in 1993 at the Playwrights Arena in Los Angeles. 

In August 1997, his play Who Lives? was staged at the 24^th Street Theatre in Los Angeles, and its good reviews have other theaters across the country considering it now.  The play earned several grants for its production, including one from The Pilgrim Project, a group that assists plays that "ask questions of real moral significance." For seven years, he was a theater reviewer for Daily Variety, and he wrote a column for Writer's Digest for two years.  His screenplay, Henry's Room, won the Donald Davis Dramatic Writing Award.

Illustration by Tim Teebken, Artville