[Writerpreneur] Re-learning You Own Natural Way to Write

You've always known how to write. If you can talk well, you can write well. Like all things, it takes practice...

by Earl Nightingale

If you’ve ever had the urge to write, but felt you couldn’t because you didn’t know enough about the English language, forget it, and start writing.

The trick, and it isn’t easy, is to write the same way you talk. The reason I say it isn’t easy is because it’s difficult to learn to read and sound as though you’re not reading, but talking in a normal, conversational manner.

Have you ever heard an inexperienced person being interviewed for a so-called spontaneous commercial? Sure you have… and you know darn well he’s reading from a cue card, a script, or has memorized his speech.

It’s the same with writing letters, or for those of us who are neurotic enough to want to write for a living. Don’t worry about splitting infinitives, dangling participles or using prepositions to end a sentence with. All that stuff has long gone out the window. Today, conversational English is the secret to, if not good, at least enjoyable, and possibly salable writing. Personally, I think enjoyable, interesting writing is good writing.

For a long time now, people have been putting forth an effort to take the formality and stiffness from their business letters. And it’s really not difficult if they’ll just dictate their letters the same way they normally talk. If they received a letter from a customer, and called him on the phone, they would never think of saying, “Thank you for your letter of the 15th. After due consideration we have reached the conclusion…” and so on. Instead, they’d say something like, “I got your letter and after thinking it over, I’ve decided to go ahead.”

The next time you write a letter, try putting down the words just as you’d say them if the person to whom you’re writing is sitting across the table. Use lots of contractions and apostrophes — just as you would in conversation.

Don’t write “cannot” if you would naturally say “can’t”… don’t write “do not” when you’d normally say “don’t,” nor “let us” when you’d more naturally say “let’s.”

And if you’ve got a story you want to write, sit down and write it as though you were telling it to an old friend, or a youngster. Write as long as the writing comes easy and natural. Stop when it becomes forced and unnatural.

Gradually, you can increase the periods of productive writing and probably stretch them in time to three or four hours. Did you know that 4 double-spaced typewritten pages a day will turn out the equivalent of a full-sized novel in 3 months?

You might remember what Leo Tolstoy said,

“A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure in which he reveals to us the inner working of his soul.”

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Enrollment open.

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