How do I improve my writing? Keep it simple, stupid!

With content and social media at the heart of any modern business, it’s never been more important to be able to write well. But if you’re not a trained or experienced writer, how do you improve your writing skills and start creating killer content for your startup?

I have my own maxim for these situations: and that’s ‘Keep it simple, stupid!’.

Simplicity is at the core of good writing, so I’ve revisited this blog post (originally from 2015) to help you start cutting out the waffle and honing your writing skills.

What’s the point of language? 

In basic terms, language is about communicating something to other people. That could be a story, an idea, a concept or even your own emotions. You say something because you want to be understood, and that applies equally to the written word. So, why do people make their writing long, complex and difficult to understand?

In part, our education is to blame. Academic method has taught us to write lengthy introductions and long, wordy conclusions. And there’s a certain misunderstanding that using long words, and plenty of them, makes you appear more intelligent. 

In fact, the ‘blind them with long words’ approach is wrong. Detailed research by Daniel Oppenheimer showed the exact opposite. People who use long, unnecessary words are usually trying to cover up a lack of knowledge – fudging their fundamental lack of insight and expertise by blinding you with jargon and technical terms.

Keep it simple

What’s important, is getting your message across clearly. And the best way to do this is usually in the most straightforward terms.

This doesn’t mean dumbing down or removing personality and individuality from your writing. It means understanding your topic, identifying the important elements and explaining them clearly. Makes sense really, doesn’t it?

So the key to good writing is a simple one: 

Keep it simple, stupid! (making the handy acronym – KISS).

• Focus on your message and make it clear 
• Don’t use 50 words when 10 will do the job
• Get your idea across without using jargon
• Throw away anything that doesn’t help your message 

Balance simplicity with soul

Balance is important. Your writing needs to be clear, accessible and easy to read. But it also needs soul. It needs to be interesting and have some personality. Choose your words wisely and make every word count. The key here is that you can’t improve bad writing by adding lots of long words – it fools no-one. 

Let’s try a metaphor. Think of a cake. Without any icing it’s boring and too plain. But with the right amount of icing and decorations, you can make a good cake into a *great* cake. Conversely, too much icing and decoration can ruin a good cake – you lose the essence of the cake and end up with a gaudy mess. 

Your aim with any kind of written content should be to add just the right amount of extra pizazz, while still maintaining the readability, simplicity and engagement of your message.

Let the music in your writing sing through

Good writing is about balancing clear, simple language with descriptive, poetic or technical language. If you can get that balance right, you’ll really start to hear those words sing. And don’t get too bogged down in the technicalities of grammar – just write as you speak. Be natural and the words will flow.

Music can be a good analogy. Being a good musician is not about learning how to build a piano; it’s about learning to play it as an instrument. It’s the same with being a writer. Too much emphasis on learning the technicalities can end up killing the music of the language. Just sit at your keyboard and bash away at the keys until it sounds right.

So, keep that KISS acronym in mind next time you sit down to write some content. Read it through and ask yourself ‘Am I really making this as simple and effective as I can?’. If not, then it may be time to keep it simple, stupid!

And if you need some inspiration, read this letter from Roald Dahl to a fledgling writer where he talks about removing those ‘beastly adjectives’.

How To Write Killer Content For Your Startup

All the tips, advice and hacks you need to start improving your writing and content marketing are available in my book – How To Write Killer Content For Your StartUp.

If you’re eager to learn the basics of business marketing, my book gives you all the advice you need to get started, broken down across ten easy-to-read chapters:

Order your copy of ‘How To Write Killer Content For Your StartUp’