Tips for Non-native Writers in English: Part Two

Click to read Writing Tips For Non-native Writers in English: Part 1
I thought I could write decently in English when the essays I wrote as class work were well received and appreciated. To write as well as a native writer, you have to start thinking in that language. I was far from being there, at least, not yet; I found I had some ideas in my head, but I had to hunt for words that would transcribe my thoughts exactly. I used to have a small LIFCO English-Tamil-English dictionary those days and I used to read it like a story book, trying to make a note of the English words that would bring to life my thoughts in Tamil. Later, I progressed to using English-English pocket dictionary. Looking up every word in the dictionary became a passion with me. I used to carry my pocket dictionary when reading the daily newspaper or when reading a short story or a novel. I used to look for synonyms and would express my thoughts a little differently each time. I wouldn’t like to say ‘I was happy’ – it had to be ‘I was delighted’ or ‘I was elated’. The more obscure a word, the better it was, I thought. Later, I realized it was foolish.

Cover of The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition

This brings me to the tips I promised earlier:

1. Appropriateness of a word is more important than complexity. Be direct. And brutally so, if and where you need to be. Short sentences are almost always better than long ones. Keep an online dictionary or Thesaurus while writing. Check whenever in doubt.
2. Brevity is the soul of good writing. That doesn’t mean you condense an entire human-interest, spell-binding story into two lines. Expand some ideas, merely allude to certain others.  “Show, don’t tell,” is one of dictum taught in Journalism schools.
3. Read, read, read. Read as many as possible books written by good and well-known writers. Observe their style. Observe how they use even simple words and simple sentences in effective ways, how they alternate long sentences and long paragraphs with short sentences and short paragraphs to break the monotony for the readers. When you read attentively and consciously, you’ll notice over a period of time that wrongly spelt words and wrongly formed sentences jar on your eyes.
4. Write, write, write. If you want to hone your writing skills, arrest the temptation to click the ‘Submit’ button in a hurry. If you are writing for a competition, write your entry well before time, and put it away. Make a backup copy of the original and rewrite. You’ll be surprised that you’re able to excel yourself. Once, my editor wasn’t particularly impressed with my writing, and sent me back with the manuscript. Instead of starting with the original and touching it up, I started from scratch, and needless to say, it turned out to be so good that my editor… Well, he was happy of course, but I didn’t get any raise!
5. Edit, edit, edit. Visit your old articles and see if you can improve them. Rearrange the sentences and paragraphs till they read well. Yes, you can rely on your own auditory feedback. Ditch entire paragraphs if they mar the flow of a story or a specific thought. Instead rewrite from scratch. This should serve as an exercise. You may be surprised at the increased traffic it generates, especially if you simultaneously submit it to various networking sites.
6. Your proficiency in writing in your native language never goes waste. You can continue to read good literature written in your native language.

Don’t the tips above (except the last) look like they can be applied by native writers as well? Yes, the tips are general, and are universally applicable. There are two parts to writing. First, the concept or idea that you are trying to convey and second, the words that strive to do it. The first part is language-independent. Even if you learned English much later in life, the first part qualifies you in a big way, for it is the more important aspect of writing. If you have nothing interesting to convey, merely having commendable writing skills becomes irrelevant.

At Triond, I have come across many Asian (Indian/ Pakistani//Malaysian/Chinese) writers who write some very good poetry because they have interesting ideas to write about, but they have not yet learned how to avoid grammatical errors. This is a minor point that should not require much time but only the willingness to work a little harder to make error-free writing possible. There are numerous on-line resources, which list errors that we make commonly as well as specify style guidelines for professional writing. Mastering these should not take much time.

Instead, many writers become defensive when errors are pointed out to them. This is THE BIG TIP for any one wanting to learn. Be humble. Be willing to discuss. Even if the person poking a finger at you isn’t ISO-accredited. As far as I am concerned, I am happy if somebody is willing to point out my mistakes and educate me on how to make my writing better.

Other Articles on Writing

To Capitalize or Not To Capitalize

Common Sense Rules For Comma Usage

The Hilarious Tale of Misplaced Modifiers

Subject-Verb Agreement

Parallelism in Good Writing

Apostrophe Bloomers

Which is a Question That is Hard to Ignore

To Hyphenate or Not to Hyphenate

Fat-free Writing

Resources and References:

Elements of Style by Strunk
English For Today