Writing

Almost every day, I read articles warning that writing is dead. Everywhere I look, such as blogs, books, news articles, and even obvious AI-generated content, writers are saying that human writing is disappearing. But none say that reading, speaking, and communicating are dead. The current writing panic isn’t really that new. Almost every generation has…

Two common types of fixed expressions we use in writing are idioms and clichés. Idioms can help with variety by expressing ideas in a figurative way instead of a long-winded literal explanation. Clichés, although similar, are phrases that we see repeated so often that they risk showing a lack of thought in writing. While both…

You always want to give your writing more punch, and finding ways to end a sentence is one of the best. Strong sentence endings can be more memorable, or create a rhythm to your writing to help keep your readers’ interest. You can leave them hanging in suspense, create emphasis, bring closure, or use a…

Your thesaurus is a writer’s go-to tool for finding uncommon words that you hope will give a sentence a lift. Very often, you might have ten or even twenty options to replace a single word. But do you simply want to avoid repetition or impress a reader with your vocabulary? Using an extended vocabulary is…

When you want to describe smells in writing, it’s easy to feel lost for words. You can skip over it by saying something smelled good or bad, but shortcuts like that won’t connect with readers. Imagine describing arriving rain after a period of drought. It’s a delicate, sweet, earthy scent. Fortunately, there’s a word for…

I was very surprised to discover that Gen Z writers are reading my writing and publishing advice articles. Not only that, but they also represent the largest percentage of my readers. When I started writing, typewriters, notebooks, and pencils were the only writing tools, and telephones were rotary dial. Dial-up Internet modems came a long…

AI training isn’t any longer a tech experiment you read about in the news. It’s happening in real-time and probably scanning your writing right now. All your blog posts, chapter drafts, or articles you’ve published or shared online are precisely the sort of material AI crawlers vacuum up every minute of the day. I know…

You always want to improve your writing or workflow, and free cloud writing apps can be a tempting and productive idea. At first, you might think you have found the perfect tool because it has a great interface, cloud storage, and comes with a few handy little features; and all for free. After some initial…

Writing with perfect grammar is so easy now. All you need is a grammar checker, or use one of the many new AI tools to help you. In a way, this is a good thing because poor grammar is an easy way to lose a reader, and it’s so easy to avoid now. However, grammar…