In his book “10 Rules of Writing” Elmore Leonard* said, “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” If ever there was a number one rule to consider for blog writing, this is it. Writers tend to be wordy. There is a fine line between over-explaining an idea and leaving out pertinent information.
Writing web content is different than any other medium. This style has evolved into a class of its own. Look over these 10 commandments, take what you will and add your own thoughts. Your bit of wisdom may help a fledgling blog writer toward success on the web.
1) Use Chunking. Chunking, or chunk writing is breaking information into small parts or chunks to make it quick and easy to understand. This style is a must for web and certain tech writing. It is horrible in fiction, serious academic writing, history or biography. We all know people do not read a web site – they skim for quick assimilation of information.
2) Use the active, not passive voice in writing. A simple example:
Active voice – The bear crapped in the woods.
Passive voice – It was the bear that crapped in the woods.
Voice, active or passive, is one of the most difficult aspects of writing for any medium. It is easy to slip into the passive voice without realizing it. The UNC Writing Center has an excellent tutorial on passive/active voice.
3) Get to the point. You are not writing a novel. Seth Godin can say more in two sentences than most of us can write in a booklet. There are circumstances where your post must be lengthy due to the content material. This is rare.
4) Be positive and friendly – don’t use negative words or words that conjure up negative thoughts. There are two ways you could write about a cup of coffee.
a. We believe you will be satisfied with our coffee.
b. We trust you won’t be disappointed with our coffee.
File this under subliminal perception, even if there is no evidence to prove it works.
5) There is no gender neutral pronoun in the English language. There are blundered attempts to correct this, but so far nothing is in place and accepted as correct English. I refuse to write ‘sie’ or ‘hir’, he/she or them (used incorrectly). The best way to handle this is to alternate between he and she. Many male authors write exclusively with she. I don’t see this as much with female authors. This makes me think male writers are scared they may offend someone.
6) If you use jargon, explain it. Picture this. You are searching for a way to make a WordPress theme display correctly with Internet Explorer. In a forum you see something like this:
ul#navigation li {
some-stuff; }
Thanks to the Gods of programming for these folks who supply answers to non-programmers. I do appreciate them. However, I often wonder how many people besides me don’t have a clue about what they mean. This is an example not meant to offend programmers.
7) Right now, stop using that in reference to a human being. Instead of that, use who. Example:
Correct: He who laughs last, laughs best.
Incorrect: He that laughs last laughs best.
Note: Animals are not human. It is proper to say “The bear that crapped in the woods is now in a TV commercial.”
8) When you write email, use the same rules that apply to web writing. This is not texting or Twitter. Don’t use LOL or other abbreviations for business or when replying to one of your readers. Commenting on a blog or forum is another place to avoid improper grammar. Be brief but correct.
9) Use your spell cheker. Then if possible, have someone else read your post. Don’t make it herd on me to unerstan you. Another way to do this is use a text reader on your computer. This is built in to current Mac systems, and available for PCs.
10) Avoid using buzz words and clichés. Most of us get tired of hearing tee shirt English. And we have special cases that make us want to gargle Drano™. Every time I hear “Thinking outside the box” I wish whoever thought of this had the box forever stuck on his head, compelled to think inside it for eternity.
Bonus number 11)
Don’t get too caught up with exact grammar and impeccably proper English. The grammar police are out there, ready to call you up for every questionable sentence you write. Recently someone admonished me for ending a sentence with a preposition. Use common sense, sometimes you may do this just because you want to.
*You can read the Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules free at this NYT page.
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