I’ve been writing for a long time now, and I’m always on the lookout for ways to make my writing more engaging. I don’t want to bore my readers. I want to make them want to keep reading. Here are some of the things I do to keep my writing engaging.
1. Make sure your writing is easy to read
This is one of the most important things you can do to make your writing more interesting. If it’s hard to read, your readers will be put off. Make it easy for your readers to read your writing. Use short sentences, short paragraphs, and plenty of white space. If you’re writing a novel, make sure your chapters are no longer than a page or two, and that your paragraphs are short enough that your reader can read them in a single sitting. If your readers have to stop and think about your writing, they’ll get bored and put your book down. Make your writing as easy as possible for your reader to read and enjoy!
2. Keep your writing short and sweet
If you have a lot to say, try to keep your writing to a few hundred words. Keep in mind that your readers don’t have the time or patience to read a novel. They’re busy, and they’re looking for a quick and easy read. Don’t expect them to sit down and read your entire novel. Keep it short, and make sure it’s easy to follow along. You can always add more to it later if you want, but you can’t take it away. If they want to read more, they’ll come back and read it. If not, they won’t come back. You’re not going to keep them reading if you’re boring them with a long novel. You need to keep it short and to the point, or you’ll bore your readers and lose them before you even get to the good stuff.
The same goes for your blog posts. Keep them short, sweet, and to-the-point. Your readers want to know what’s in it for them. What’s the point of reading your blog post if they’ve already read the whole thing? If you’ve got a long blog post, break it up into several shorter posts. It’ll keep your readers reading, and it’ll give them something to look forward to when they come back to your blog.
3. Use the active voice
The active voice is when the subject of the sentence is doing the action, rather than the subject being the object of the action. For example, instead of saying, “The dog chased the cat,” you can say, ‘The cat chased the dog.” The active voice makes your writing sound more active, and your writing will sound more interesting if it sounds more active. The passive voice, on the other hand, is when you use the subject as the direct object of an action. In the example above, the dog is the subject, and the cat is the object. The dog is being chased by the cat. The subject and object are reversed in the passive voice.
4. Use active verbs
Active verbs are verbs that have a subject and a direct object. An example of an active verb is ‘to write.’ In the sentence, ‘I wrote a book,’ the subject is ‘I.’ The direct object is ‘a book.’ You can also use the verb ‘to read’ in the same way. ‘I read a book.’ ‘A book was written.’ ‘The book was read.’
5. Use action words
Action words are words that describe the action of the verb. An action word is a word that describes what is happening in the sentence. It can be a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. Some examples of action words are ‘run,’ ‘jump,’ and ‘fall.’ If you want to write a sentence that sounds active, use action words.
6. Use nouns, not adjectives
Adjectives describe nouns. Nouns describe people, places, or things. Adjectives can be used to describe a person, a place, or a thing, but nouns can only be used for people or places, and not for things. For instance, you can use an adjective to describe the color of a person’s hair, or the temperature of a place. But you can only use a noun to describe something that’s a person or a place ‘ like a dog or a house.
7. Use verbs, not nouns
Verbs describe actions. They can be verbs like ‘to run’ or ‘to jump.’ They can also be verbs that describe a state of being, such as ‘to be hungry.’ Verbs can be combined with nouns to make noun-verb phrases, but they cannot be used as nouns on their own. Verbs cannot describe people or things, only actions.
8. Use pronouns, not prepositions
Pronouns are words like “he”, “she” or “it”. They are used in place of nouns or noun phrases. They are also used to replace a noun or noun phrase in a sentence. ‘He ran.’ ‘She jumped.’ ‘It fell down.’
9. Use adjectives, not adverbs
An adverb describes an adjective. An adjective describes a noun. An adverb doesn’t describe anything, it just modifies an adjective or another adverb, or it modifies the verb in a verb-adjective-noun (VAN) sentence. Examples of adverbs are “slowly”,”quickly”, “finally”.
10. Use phrases, not sentences
Phrases are made up of two or more words. A sentence is a complete thought. A phrase is a group of words that make up a complete sentence.
11. Use short sentences, not long ones
Short sentences are easier to read than long ones. Short sentences make your writing easier to understand, which makes your readers more likely to read your writing. Long sentences are harder to read, which means your readers are less likely to finish reading your long sentences.
12. Use punctuation correctly
Use commas to separate items in a series. Use semicolons to connect two independent clauses. Use periods to end sentences. Use question marks to ask a question. Use exclamation points to express surprise, anger, or excitement. Use quotation marks to indicate a direct quote. Use apostrophes to indicate contractions. Use hyphens to indicate compound words. Use dashes to indicate ellipses. Use brackets to enclose quoted material.