DevYou

This morning, while waiting for a table at a busy restaurant, I read the local weekly newspaper to while away the time. I hadn’t brought the weekly with me; it just happened to be conveniently at hand when I arrived and got stuck in line. None of the articles were about subjects that interested me much, but it was a worthwhile way to spend a little time.

Why? Because I read each article with the following two questions in mind:

• What makes this article work?
• What would make this article better?

If you’d like to become a better writer, this simple exercise is incredibly instructive. Conveniently, material is always at hand. Think, for instance, of all those magazines in your dentist’s waiting room. What makes the articles tick? Take a look and see.

You can add more questions as you go, if you like. For example:

• How does the first sentence hook the reader?
• Is the writing clear? If so, how?
• Do you like author’s sense of rhythm?
• Is one article obviously better than another? If so, why?
• Why did the author (or editor) choose this particular title? Does it grab your attention? Why?

Newspapers tend not to be adequate-but-not-great choices for this exercise because newspaper articles are strictly forumlaic. Magazine feature articles and essays are much better.

Do you have little ways to sharpen your writing skills that you particularly like? Share them with your fellow readers in the comments.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Techniques, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.