Lack of clarity

A problem that I frequently address in my editing work is unclear writing. For example, consider the following: Steve and Matt slipped out by the back door. He shut the door quietly. Can you spot the question this example raises? Who is 'he' in the second sentence - Steve or Matt?

Often, when you write you get caught up in the world you're depicting, and you can forget that the reader isn't inside your head, seeing exactly what you see. You know exactly who shut the door, and your mind assumes the reader does too.

The simplest remedy for such lack of clarity is to read your writing back to yourself slowly, and when you come to pronouns (e.g. he, she, it, they), think carefully whether you need to clarify who exactly the pronoun refers to.

Organise, organise, organise

When you write anything - from a letter right through to a 90,000-word book - your utmost priority needs to be how you organise the content. Forget about pretty and accurate language for now - that can come later. You need to meticulously plan your structure before you even begin writing, and give a great deal of thought to how the reader will most easily access your information.

Unfortunately, many writers get the process topsy-turvy. If you're writing a stream of consciousness piece or highly creative poem then fine, let the muse take over and lead you wherever she likes. But for any other writing (and that's 99.9 per cent of your writing) you need to plan what you say before you say it. If you don't, your reader gives up on your beautifully worded piece after page one, because the material is chaotic and confusing.

Readers like organised, logical, coherent structures. They like to read your info in manageable chunks (not two-page paragraphs) and to know exactly where they are and where the text is moving to.

A writer who spends time creating a detailed plan for her writing and mapping out the structure of the piece is much more likely to create good writing. I am always happier to review a writer's initial plan and iron out any problems at that early stage than wade through the final piece and try to work out what the writer's haphazard structure should become.

If you want the best out of your writing, do the groundwork and you'll find everything else falls into place from there. If you want the best out of your writing and you don't do the groundwork, you may find yourself in the frustrating situation of having to go back and rewrite much of your beloved text.

Common mistakes in writing

They rear their ugly heads daily as I proofread and edit, worming their way into document after document as if sticking a tongue out at me goading, Catch me if you can. And I do catch them, day after day - mistakes I find so often they jump out at me from the page as if 3D.

Here's my top five:

1. Comma splices: It's amazing how many writers join two sentences together with a comma, and rather alarming how prevalent this has become in published books (take a look at this weekend's HP finale).
2. Missing/incorrect apostrophes: Did you notice the apostrophe in weekend's above? Many seem to feel the apostrophe is either optional, or something to plonk anywhere in the vicinity of the word in question.
3. Random capitals: I spend an impressive amount of my day decapitalising words.
4. Inconsistent styling: It's thirteen miles to London, but three lines later it's 15 days until Christmas.
5. Spellchecked nonsense: Just because that word is spelled correctly, doesn't mean it's the right word. This morning I found the following while proofreading a serious article on a church: The chap is a plaice for queer time (The chapel is a place for quiet time).

Leave the complex writing to Dickens...

Good writing is clear, concise and simple. Good writing is not about how many fancy, long words you can ram in a 70-word sentence. It's not about feeling smug that your reader will need a dictionary to fathom your meaning. It's definitely not about confusing, boring or exhausting the reader, or trying to appear clever.

When I write, I try to keep it simple. I know that my readers will be more impressed by copy that's accessible and easy to understand than pompous writing. Just because I know a longer, weightier word for something, doesn't mean I have to use it. I trust that people know my worth as a writer and my intelligence without shoving a regurgitated dictionary down their throats.

Sometimes, it's appropriate to use formal language, for example my terms and conditions are worded formally. But formal writing can still be simple and clear, something which too many people forget.

I was once approached by a student who wanted me to rewrite his theses to make it 'more wordy'. His well-written plain English work was losing him marks from his university tutor because it wasn't 'complex enough'. I was rather glad I couldn't take on the project (it would constitute plagiarism) as to deliberately complicate text seems ridiculous to me.

If you want to win a literary award for a beautifully-written but fairly incomprehensible novel, pick up that dictionary. If you want copy that sells or informs, don't be afraid to keep it simple.