The 5 Spectacular Ways To Improve Your Writing Skills.
These Mind-Blowing Techniques Will Improve Your Writing Forever.
There is a rather strange concept in the world of writing. 🤔
Some writers believe that creative writing refers only to fiction.
As if non-fiction can’t be creative 😏
What a crazy idea.
Of course, non-fiction can be creative. Any creative writing technique can be used to improve any kind of writing.
Let me show you.
Creative writing examples in non-fiction
Have you ever noticed how quickly you read non-fiction?
You often find yourself speeding up, you understand concepts quickly and don’t pay that much attention to the words and sentences.
The concepts feel worthy of your time.
I’m currently reading Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs.
It’s a book about whales 🐳, and the relationship humans have with whales. It’s half science, half philosophy.
You may think that’s a recipe for boring writing
But no at all.
I find myself paying attention to ideas, savouring the words like a good wine.
This is especially true for the first chapter.
What makes Giggs’ writing so enjoyable?
She understands how to captivate her readers, how to choose words, and how to inject a healthy dose of creativity into her writing.
Let me show you. 🕵️
Grabbing readers' attention
Straight from the first sentence in Fathoms, Giggs hooks 🎣 her readers.
Here’s how her book starts:
A few years ago, I helped push a beached humpback whale back out into the sea, only to witness it return and expire under its own weight on the shoreline.
That sentence makes me want to learn more. Why did the humpback whale return? How did it expire under its own weight?!!??? 🤔🤷
I continued reading until I reached the second sentence, which was even more intriguing:
For the three days that it died, the whale was a public attraction.
Just one sentence but yet so much drama. How could it take the whale 3 days to die? And how could that be a public attraction? There’s so much tension in the contrast between dying and being an attraction.
You may believe that your job as a writer is to explain, educate 👩🏫, inspire, or sell💸. However, if you can’t successfully grab your reader’s attention, you won’t be able to offer your thoughts or explain your sales pitch🗣️.
Paint vivid imagery
Giggs creates vivid and amazing imageries that make me feel as though I’m peering over her shoulder:
The whale was black like piano wood, and, because it was still young, it was pink in the joints under its fins. Waves burst behind it, sending spray over its back. Every few minutes, the whale slammed its flukes against the wet sand and exhaled loudly — a tantrum or leverage. Its soft chest turned slack, concertinaed by the pull of the swell.
Can you visualize the whale on the shore exhaling?
Vivid writing makes readers feel as if they are present in the narrative.
Readers view through the author’s eyes 👀, perceiving what the author sees. They listen with the author’s ears 👂, hearing what the author hears.
Readers connect well with tales, which is what makes them memorable😇.
There are various options to paint vivid imagery in nonfiction writing.
First, on a sales page, allow visitors to visualize themselves using your product or working with you.
How will you make a difference in their lives? How will that affect them?
Secondly, make testimonials appear more realistic.
Ask your clients to describe in more detail what it feels like working with you. What exactly did they enjoy? And how has your service improved their lives?
Finally, share your own stories. Express why you do what you do, for example, on an about page or in a blog post. What inspires 🌟you? What makes your heart 💓beat faster?🙂
Zooming 🧐 in
Giggs describes how whales remain a part of the ecosystem, even after they die in the first chapter of Fathoms.
But she begins by zooming 🧐 in on one specific whale, a beached humpback whale:
I put one hand briefly on the skin of the humpback and felt its distant heartbeat, an electrical throbbing like a refrigerated truck, sealed tight. I wanted to tap on the outside of the animal and whisper to it: Are you in there, whale? Neighbour, is that you? Life on that scale — mammalian life on that scale — so unfamiliar and familiar in turns. Oh, the alien whale. The world-bound whale. A stranger inside. I hated to watch it.
Writing in non-fiction is often abstract. Most times, we want to explain the trends or general tips. But such writing is hard to grasp and easy to forget.
So, the key to writing engaging and captivating non-fiction is to focus🎯 on individual tales that illustrate your views.
This can also be applied to any writing.
For example, when creating a blog article with tips, include a genuine or an imaginary story about someone who adopted those tips.
A testimonial on a sales page might take the form of a tiny tale describing how a product or service has improved one person’s life.
The truth is, stories belong in both fiction and nonfiction.
Show and tell
The official advice in creative writing is to “show, don’t tell.”
But in practice, we often show AND tell.
Showing means directing a mental movie in your reader’s imagination by using sensory details and explaining actions. Telling means making a brief, factual statement.
For instance, here’s how Giggs tells us how oceans were feared in the past:
People once feared there was a terrible, existential emptiness in the ocean, an unpeopled and unending openness.
It’s an example of telling because we can’t visualize it. It’s simply a statement of people’s existential fear of the emptiness in the ocean.
Here’s how Giggs finds a way to show this is true:
In antiquity, cartographers populated the seaward frontiers of their maps with drolleries. Hand-drawn pictograms, drolleries are whales hybridised with sea serpents; monsters adorned with antlers and tusks, scales and sprigs of feathers.
Showing requires a writer’s resourcefulness to find an example that can illustrate that a statement is true. It not only boosts believability but also makes the writing more engaging.
So, whenever you make a general or abstract claim, ask yourself, 🤔 “How can I prove this is true?” Can I give an example or two?
Play with your words
The usual writing advice is to make use of words that everyone else uses, right?
Yes, using plain words makes your writing easier to read.
However, your writing does not have to sound the same as everyone else’s. You may add a flourish here and there to show off your personality.
For instance, Giggs uses sensory language to help us imagine what it’s like to hear a whale breathe:
Stood ankle-deep on the beach at night, you hear them. That is, you hear the whales breathing. How the sound carries across the water, I do not know. A whale sneezes: you jump. It sounds like a roller-door slamming.
And note the strong verbs Giggs uses to describe the sociable noises that humpback whales🐳 make:
The whales grunt, rasp, thwop, and moan; they shriek, whine, bubble, gurgle, and fin-slap on the sea’s topside, as well as generating what are called ‘pulse trains’: subsonic resonances, only recently discovered, that thump across the lower thresholds of human hearing like rain drubbing a tarp.
The words you choose help in the creation of your writing ✍️voice, allowing readers to recognize your writing and look forward to hearing from you again.
So, when you’ve completed writing a blog post or a sales page, look for two or three key lines and play with the language.
How can you improve the impact of your words?
So, Picture this.
Imagine your reader …
It’s Monday at 8 A.M.
She feels tired 🥴, with a slight headache. The weekend was far too short.
She switches on her computer 💻and checks her inbox📫 while sipping green tea.
There’s your email 💌 …
Will she click away, uninterested in more dry advice?
Or is there a story to engage her?
Are her eyes lighting 😍up because she’s delighted to hear from you?
Book mentioned in this post:
The link below is an Amazon affiliate link. If possible, please support your local bookstore.
- Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
