23 Ways to Become a Great Writer

So you wanna be a writer? We have lots of readers who ask us if they can write columns or news stories for us. Others want to edit copy for us because they often see typos in The Enterprise. Many of these helpful readers worked on their high school newspapers and know they would be excellent additions to our staff ... and they might be right.

Being a writer is easy ... it's the actual writing that can be difficult. Luckily for all of us, Frank Visco has condensed some good writing advice into 23 tips. And if you can follow Visco's guidance, you might have a career in newspapering!

"How to Write Good"
By Frank L. Visco

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?