Blogs That Roar: 3 Tips for Powerful Writing

I have been tagged by both Opal Tribble at Addicted to Writing and Misti Sandefur at Life of a Writer for the Roar for Powerful Words meme.

The post originating this award at Shameless Lions Writing Circle says recipients are to…

… accompany the image with three things they believe are necessary to make writing good and powerful.

That certainly falls into the category of tags I respond to – giving writing advice is an important part of this blog. Other recipients of this award have given some excellent tips.

Here are three things I believe are necessary for good and powerful writing:

  1. Turn off your internal editor when writing your first draft. Many writers who try to get it right the first time end up getting stuck on the first chapter or the first page. Dump your ideas into the manuscript with no concern about whether what you’re writing is good or not. Get your inspired ideas down on paper, and you’ll have plenty of opportunity to polish them later.
  2. Edit, revise, rewrite … edit, revise, rewrite … edit, revise, rewrite … as many times as necessary. Your original ideas may have been inspired, but, if you’re like most of us, you’ll have to polish and refine over and over again to turn your inspired ideas into powerful words.
  3. Show, don’t tell. Use strong verbs, active voice, and descriptive details to tell your story or make your point. “His brown hair brushed the top of the door as he strode into the den” is more powerful than “He was so tall he almost didn’t fit through the door when he came into the room.”

What are three things you consider essential to powerful writing? I’m tagging anyone who would like to share their tips. Leave a comment with your tips or with a link to a post on your own blog. I’ll update this post to add a link to anyone who responds to the tag.

[tags]blogs that roar, writing tips[/tags]

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