Tapping your pencil on a blank sheet of paper not knowing where to start can be very frustrating. Looking through your window, praying that inspiration will hit you like a hammer and you will start writing until your fingers turn blue, most likely is not going to happen. You loathe writing, we know, that’s why you ended up reading this in the first place. It’s not because you have nothing to say, but rather because you don’t know exactly how to say it, or even worse to put in on paper. Sure, you can always send an emoji and spare yourself a misery, but that’s not going to work well with your employer, for example, right? Therefore, let’s get to it.
Practice makes it perfect
Before putting your own words on the paper, practice by writing what other people said. Play a video and write what the person is saying, word for word. This might spark your imagination and freshen up your vocabulary. It’s also a great spelling practice. In case you have any doubts, you can always use websites to help you with grammar and spelling, like Grammar Lookup. If you don’t want to bother with pausing video all the time, pick up a newspaper that will fit the writing style you want to achieve and copy texts from there. It helps with specific terms that need to be used, or with slang, depending on what you want to write about.
Watch and learn
Or, rather, listen and learn. You can just turn your TV on and listen carefully to the words that are used. TV anchors usually have a lot of experience in talking properly, using the right pronunciation, and just putting sentences together in a short-and-to-the-point order. Practice this for an hour, let’s say, and then shut it off and start writing about what you heard. If you remember any of the phrases, put them in too, just make sure that they are in the right place in the text. Write as you talk. Don’t stress yourself about not making it perfect, it’s a work in progress. If the news is too boring for you, listen to any kind of tutorials, or narrated TV shows.
Read
It’s so much easier to watch a video, we know. But in order to write properly, reading is one of the best ways to go, so make an effort. There must be something that you like to read, a novel, or short stories, anything will do. The more you read, the better your writing will be. Pay attention to the choice of words and the way ideas are linked into one clever story. If you find any words that you’ve never heard of, write them down and look it up. When you find the meaning, put it back into the sentence from the book and read it again. Also, look at the synonyms and the opposites, and try to remember them. This way you are practicing reading and writing at the same time.
Create folders
If you find any headlines, or phrases, or sentences that you really like and find them inspirational, write them down, or even better make folders. Sort them by the theme, for example, politics, entertainment, etc., or by the form; headlines, jokes, examples, or phrases. This can be very useful when you get stuck and cannot find any motivation for writing by saving you a lot of time and effort.
Make writing a habit
Write, write, write. Recipes, or quick notes for your family or roommates. Make use of any situation to write. This will better your writing skills slowly, but surely. Writing a journal is one of the best ideas to further develop your writing. First of all, no one will ever see it, so relax about making mistakes, or scrabble. Depending on what type of writing you want to build, practice short sentences that get to the point right away, or if that’s too flat for your needs, try adding some pizzazz to it by going deep and wide into explaining the story.
Think before writing
Finally, after all the practice, try to write an actual essay. First, ask yourself who are you writing for? This is crucial. Imagine that you are a mentor to that one person, or to the audience, and make a plan. First, you need a captivating, powerful headline. Something that will make a person want to continue reading.
Then, take your time to make a blueprint of your essay or an article, and do not rush things. Think about the major points you want to make and make a list; this will be like a bone structure of your paper. Now, for example, if your topic is about the best chocolates in the world, think about the first thought that comes to your mind when you see it. Or start with a little bit of history like how it’s made, where was it first introduced, how many different sorts we have today and so on.
Next is the body of your text. This is where you have all the liberty to go into details of every fact you already mentioned in the opening paragraph or two and develop the story further. Here you can add some scientific data, and go into teeny tiny specifics. The body usually takes about 60-70% of your paper, so feel free to cover every layer of the story on hand. If you have any examples, or, if appropriate, to crack a light joke, this would be the right time to present it.
In closing, sum up everything you wrote about so far in a few sentences and make it inspirational. Your readers should feel good about reading it, so remember, no judging!
Writing is creating; you actually created something amazing. It’s probably not going to end up on the front pages of the newspapers, but it still gives you a satisfying feeling that you completed the task. You actually turned lemons into lemonade (or a lemon drop cocktail?). Remember one more thing – do not be intimidated by the critiques, or if you don’t get any comments at all. You put yourself out there, your thoughts and ideas, and that in itself is a great accomplishment.
