Forget everything your teachers taught you in school and listen close: it's not about knowing how to diagram a sentence or tell the difference between elusion, illusion and allusion. Writing well is about getting ideas across in a way that makes people want to keep reading, and more importantly, not beat you about the head with your own work. I'll be giving simple tips for writing effective prose and not getting bogged down in trying to fit some paradigm of "good writing."

1. How to Write Well
a primer
by kate sarah folsom

2. Say what you mean!

3. Don’t dress your writing up
with words you barely
understand. This just shows
that you own a thesaurus,
and doesn’t impress anyone.

4. Bad writing makes me want to
vomit.
Literally, it makes me ill.
Oh, and don’t misuse “literally.” Or “ironic,”
for that matter.

5. It would be ironic if I’d
misused the word “literally” in
my last slide. If you don’t
understand the concept, you
have no business using this
word.

6. Things that are NOT ironic:
• Winning the lottery and dying the next day
(coincidence)
• Good advice that you didn’t take (bad
judgment)
• Meeting the man of your dreams and then
meeting his beautiful wife (bad luck)

7. Mean what you say!

8. If you don’t believe what
you’re saying, neither will we.
And if you don’t understand
what your point is, how can
the reader possibly get it?

9. Be concise!

10. Good writing is quick and
clean. Don’t add a bunch of
superfluous verbiage to try to
make yourself sound better.
It’s just gross.

11. I am allowed to use phrases like
“superfluous verbiage” because I am
awesome. I know what those words
mean. And I consider my audience is
intelligent.
Dig?

12. Use your own voice.

13. Consider your audience.

14. Learn the rules. Then discard them as
necessary.
• Some of the rules are really important!
– Noun and verb (number) agreement
– Proper punctuation
– Run-on sentences
• Some of the rules are kinda BS!
– Splitting your verb phrase
– Using contractions
– Fragments

15. Write what you know.

16. Don’t “soapbox.” If you
present the facts compellingly
enough, people will be swayed
to agree with your opinion!

17. Write something that
you would want to read.

18. Try to have fun.

20. Kate Folsom
katefolsom@gmail.com
selfindulgentdrivel.org