The Key to Successful Writing

To become a good writer, you must practice and show the following traits in your writing. These traits are called the Six Traits of Writing, and are the reason why great writers are who they are today. Without the six traits, your writing is crap. I, myself, am still working on the traits.

1. Ideas – Your writing must narrow down on one topic, and the topic should be interesting and grab the reader in.

2. Organization –  Your writing must be organized. It should be like: Topic Sentence, Detail, Detail, Detail, MORE Detail, then Conclusion. The whole paper must be Introduction, Body, then Conclusion Paragraph.

3. Sentence Fluency – Your sentences must vary in length. They must not be choppy or run-ons, and they must flow into one another smoothly.

4. Word Choice – Use precise and perfect word choice when writing. For example, instead of using big, use vast. Instead of bad, use terrible. Don’t use baby words such as big, bad, good, etc.

5. Voice – Voice gives your writing style and a certain feel to the characters. The reader will know exactly how you or the character feels.

6. Conventions – Conventions are the easiest part of the six traits. Just make sure your writing has no spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors.

Follow these traits and practice them, and you are sure to improve your writing.