When we begin writing, most of us have a prior understanding of the tools necessary to convey our vision, concept, or idea across to readers.

So, if you’ve been an avid reader for a while, it may seem relatively simple to take what you know and apply it to your pieces. Since school has already taught us the rudiments of spelling and grammar, besides a reasonably good vocabulary, we can now build upon them and develop something ourselves.

Therefore, now that we have the absolute essentials, it only leaves us with the elements of writing, discussed below:

Proper organization and Paragraphing 

Firstly, an able writer organizes his/her ideas in a manner that flows logically and smoothly from the beginning to the end of the essay, article, or report. The topic presents the central point or argument the writer wants to deconstruct while each following section, such as the introduction, body, and conclusion, expounds on the concept.

On that note, a written work can contain multiple subtopics or subheads depending on the several layers the writer intends to explore. Furthermore, an excellent writer focuses on paragraph development to ensure an organized presentation and effortless readability. Ideally, each paragraph should contain an opening topic related sentence, supporting lines, and a conclusion.

Clarity Through Each Sentence

The second point you should focus on is using concise and appropriate language without being repetitive, vague, or verbose. Writers can achieve this level of precision by constantly editing their work to eliminate jargon, use of complex vocabulary, unnecessary words, and redundant information.

For instance, phrases like “terrible tragedy”, “in order to” or “red in color” can be avoided as they do not add value to a sentence. Also, it’s important for writers to repeatedly go through their pieces to remove convoluted sentences that detract or digress from the main argument and confuses the readers.

Apart from that, readability and elegance are two key factors that writers must maintain throughout so readers can seamlessly sail across words, sentences, and paragraphs. Moreover, the use of active voice is vital in a sentence to make direct and clear points as passive voice often introduces ambiguity. While ensuring clarity, good writing also incorporates appropriate words and properly constructed sentences that convey the writer’s thought process.

Create and Maintain a Style

Style is essential to eloquent writing as it determines whether readers stay interested in the work or won’t be bothered to turn another page. Therefore, often the style of the writer is also termed as the writer’s ‘voice,’ especially for a fictional piece. That being the case, the tone, mood, sentence structure, rhythm, and the narrative voice comes under the purview of style as well.

Any style can be developed and refined with practice, and they may appear distinctive from the first word set down on paper. So basically, how you write and express yourself, is your style. Furthermore, as a writer, you have the creative freedom to change and experiment with different styles to suit a particular genre.

Obviously, penning down a whodunit or a crime thriller may demand an approach and style different from writing a gothic romance or science fiction. Some of us have an ocean of ideas to explore in a single style, while others enjoy the diversity of creating different styles.

Eliminating Common Errors Paragraph-wise

The hallmark of a perfect piece of work is that it has zero spelling, grammatical, or typing errors. A careful writer will edit and proofread while they process paragraphs to ensure there are no silly mistakes and errors that alter the meaning of a sentence. They also weed out grammatical errors as they bring down the quality of a written work.

Furthermore, the use of slangs and colloquial expressions in certain instances may indicate a lack of command over the language, so writers should ideally avoid using them in their copies.

Delivering the Right Punch

The fifth and final checkpoint is delivery! The manner in which you deliver your ideas, thoughts, and perceptions should hit the bull’s eye each time. If you want the readers to feel what you’re experiencing, then you must pack a punch in your writing and deliver it at the right time.

Additionally, you must pay attention to the build-up as that ensures your readers get and stay hooked. Do not bore the readers with redundant details or take them on ride to irrelevant places just for the sake of variety and complexity. It’s important that you pique their curiosity and lead them on to more interesting depths inside the storyline.

If you bear these points in mind while writing, you can create a compelling read for your audience. Also, now that we’ve covered the basics, we would like to share a few more words with story writers.

The Structure of the Story

The structure of the story is one of the primary elements of writing that you must focus on as it inherently incorporates the plot and the character arcs. You should design the structure of storytelling in a way that’s engaging, attractive, and exciting enough to draw the readers through to the end.

You may want to begin and keep the story in the present, or start in the past and move forwards, illuminating the meaning and progression of the story gradually. Regardless of whether you maintain a chronological order or not, you must pay attention to the time and place so you can present information logically.

Furthermore, structural design is intrinsic to short stories and sometimes for longer pieces. The more complex the narrative, the more care needs to be taken with structure. Otherwise, you may end up doing a lot of rewriting if halfway through it, you lose the thread, disengage from the plot, or prefer presenting the story in a different framework.

Points of View

Points of view are generally ascertained by the type of story, sometimes by the expectations of the readers or genre, and sometimes for the sake of clarity. A simple story about a few characters, or events witnessed by a single character, can have the tale narrated from one perspective.

However, as the plot thickens, limited points of view, or events occurring only from the protagonist’s perspective become less and less appealing. Complex, multiple-character stories, and texts with different parallel storylines should necessarily have a well-designed structure and easily discernible, multiple character viewpoints to convey all the information to the readers.

That being said, there is no right or wrong when it comes to portraying points of view in storytelling – what matters the most is what best suits the story. Therefore, you must have all the perspectives arranged clearly in your head so you can align them in the story to add more meaning to the plot.

Characters and Characterisation

This may seem like a no-brainer, but we just want to stress how important it is while spinning a tale. Ultimately, it’s the characters that will ensure that readers keep turning pages. A unique plot might get the readers hooked, but usually, it’s the human tale, their connection to, and empathy for the characters, that keeps them reading.

To create characters that are flesh and blood, you must have genuine interest and curiosity in people. You must observe the human behavior, nature, and their reactions to extraordinary events in their life. You must delve deeper into the human psyche and understand the complexities of emotions and feelings.

At the end of the day, well-drawn characters are people, and they’re, like every other person, laden with their past experiences and the way those experiences impacted them. They have loved ones, flaws, strengths, opinions, interests, and their innate characteristics.

Therefore, engaging the readers with your characters means letting them in, allowing them to explore the world of the characters, and maybe liking them a little or a lot. Above all else, the characters should be making a journey through your story.

There must be a sense of progression where readers feel in sync with the characters and take a walk with them as they go through different situations in their lives.

Conclusion

Writing is like a cakewalk once you’ve learned to incorporate all these elements into your text. But then again, you can only become a wizard with words when you practice enough and sharpen your skills.

Also, all good writers find inspiration from books, magazines, e-literature, and other texts to elevate their way of thinking and penning down their thoughts. So keep up with your reading habit to unlock literary treasures in all forms – print or electronic.

On that note, we hope that we could help you understand the intricacies of writing. Now that you’ve read through this guide, we want you to wield the pen and spin a tale with all the essential elements aboard that can charm readers from the get-go.

Till next time!