All posts tagged writing

Orwell’s other advice about writing

If you are writing (anything at all: emails to colleagues, notices on the fridge, product descriptions, text messages to your friends…) then I hope at some point you have come across George Orwell’s 6 rules for writing.

Them’s good rules.

They are the conclusion to his 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, in which he talks about the relationship between clear language and clear thinking. He ends his argument with 6 rules for sharp and accurate writing, in the hope that, not only will people express themselves more clearly, but that they might think more clearly too – that their communication might become meaning-full.

And yet halfway through the article, Orwell mentions another list for writers that gets me just as excited.

The real reason your last web site was a car crash

Who was responsible for your horrific old web site again?

You know, the one crowded with far too much information, most of it out of date, and navigation like a drunk describing the way to the kebab shop.

The one where one line is emphasised in italics, the next one in bold, before the floodgates open and red and blue type competes with underlining, CAPITALS, and multiple exclamation marks!!!!!!!

How to write great blog posts

I’ve put together a 2-hour workshop called ‘How to write great blog posts’.

It’s designed to show non-writers how to turn out fantastic articles for their business blogs, consistently.

It’s not just a presentation (in one ear and out the other). Rather it’s sitting down with an experienced web writer and learning hands-on some of the simple (when you know them) techniques for:

Time to squish the double space

Have you ever shared a room at night with a mosquito?

Tiny things can ruin what should be a straightforward experience. Don’t deal with the mosquito, and you’re in for a bad night’s sleep at best. Leave a spelling mistake on your web site because it seems insignificant to you – and it’s your customers who will be complaining and not coming back.

Writing great copy involves not only choosing the right words, but also caring how those words appear. Font choice and size, line length, punctuation, paragraph length – all these are part of the readers’ experience of your message.

Many of these decisions are subjective. How much space to leave between sentences, for example: surely it is up to the author to decide what is most fitting?

Yes, and no.