Two people write about the same thing. Both are literate, both did the research, both spent the same afternoon on it. One piece gets read to the end and quoted; the other gets abandoned in the third paragraph.
The difference is almost never talent, and it is not inspiration. It is four decisions — two of them made before the first sentence exists, two of them made after the last one. Professionals make all four on purpose. Everyone else makes them by default and calls the result a mood.
The contract: one reader, one promise
Every piece of writing makes a deal in its opening lines: give me your attention, and in return you will get this. Most weak writing has simply never stated the terms — not to the reader, and not to the writer either.
Settle two things before drafting. Who exactly is this for, and what will they be able to do, understand or feel afterwards that they could not before? Write both on a line at the top of the file. Every later question — how much to explain, which example to use, what to cut — is answered by that line instead of by instinct.
"An article about productivity." Written for everyone, so it explains what everyone already knows and skips what any particular reader needed.
"For a manager who has tried three systems and abandoned all of them: why systems fail on a team, and what to do instead."
The second version writes itself faster, too. A narrow contract is not a smaller audience; it is the only way to be worth reading by anybody.
Structure: the order the reader can follow
Writing in the order you discovered something is the most natural mistake in prose, and it is fatal. You researched in one order; the reader must receive it in another — the order in which each idea is ready to be understood.
The working test is the connector test. List your sections and put a word between each pair. If the honest word is and then, you have a pile. If it is therefore, but or which is why, you have a structure, and the reader will feel pulled rather than marched.
Three orders that reliably work
- Problem, cause, solution — when the reader already feels the pain and wants it named.
- Claim, objection, evidence — when the reader starts out sceptical and would otherwise argue in their head.
- Whole, then parts — when the subject is unfamiliar and the details are meaningless without the frame.
Choosing wrongly here cannot be repaired by good sentences. A reader who does not know why they are reading paragraph four stops at paragraph four, however well it is written. This is the argument of why the structure must come before the detail.
Rhythm: sentences of one length are a drone
Readers do not consciously notice sentence length, and they respond to nothing more strongly. A page of uniform medium sentences produces a hum the eye slides off. Variation produces attention, and a short sentence after a long one lands like a door closing.
Three mechanical habits carry most of the effect, and none of them requires an ear:
Put the actor in front of the verb
"The committee rejected the proposal" is shorter, clearer and more accountable than "the proposal was rejected". Passive constructions hide who did what, which is occasionally the point and usually an accident.
Prefer the verb to the noun made from it
"We decided" beats "we reached a decision". Nouns built from verbs — implementation, utilisation, consideration — drain the energy out of a sentence and add syllables to pay for it.
Read it aloud
Where you run out of breath, the sentence is too long. Where you stumble, the word order is wrong. This is the cheapest editing tool ever invented and the most widely skipped.
Orwell put the underlying principle bluntly in Politics and the English Language: never use a long word where a short one will do, and if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. He then added the rule that makes the rest usable — break any of these sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Pruning: the draft is the raw material, not the work
William Zinsser's central claim in On Writing Well is that the disease of bad writing is clutter, and the cure is ruthless, mechanical removal. Strunk and White said it in three words: omit needless words. Stephen King's version is the arithmetic one — the second draft is the first draft minus ten per cent.
Every one of them is describing a pass, not an attitude. Do it as a pass: finish, leave it overnight, then hunt specific things rather than reading for general quality.
| Delete on sight | Why it is there | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| It is important to note that | Clearing your throat before the real sentence. | Cut it. The sentence after it is the sentence. |
| Very, really, quite, rather | Propping up a word you do not fully trust. | Find the stronger word instead. |
| In order to | Habit. | Use to. |
| There is / there are | Delays the subject by two words. | Start with the subject. |
| As we all know | Insurance against sounding obvious. | If they know it, cut the sentence; if not, the phrase is a lie. |
| The final restating paragraph | Reluctance to stop. | End on the last real point, not on a summary of it. |
It is important to note that there are a number of different factors which can have an impact on the overall readability of a given piece of text, and in order to ensure that your writing is as clear as it possibly can be, it is generally advisable to take these various factors into careful consideration.
Several things affect readability. Know them before you write.
Nothing was lost. That is the uncomfortable discovery of every pruning pass, and the reason to schedule it rather than trust your judgement in the moment.
The seven-point pass before you publish
Ten minutes, in this order, on anything you are about to send, publish or submit.
- Does the opening state the contract within three sentences?
- Between every two sections, is the connector therefore or but — never and then?
- Is there a sentence over forty words that could be two?
- Did you search the filler list above and delete every hit?
- Is every claim either evidenced or explicitly marked as opinion?
- Did you read it aloud and fix every place you stumbled?
- Does the last paragraph add something, or merely repeat?
A rule you apply is worth ten you agree with. See also how to develop a writing style, which is what happens once these four decisions become automatic.
Cutting is easier when nothing is lost
Most writers keep bad paragraphs out of fear. Version history removes the fear, and the pruning pass stops being painful.
Version history per page
Cut a third of a chapter. The earlier version is one click away.
Search the whole book
Hunt every "in order to" across 90,000 words in one pass.
Structure you can rearrange
When the connector test fails, drag the sections into the right order.
An assistant that has read the text
Ask which paragraphs repeat each other, then decide yourself.
Common questions
What are the rules of professional writing? +
Four decisions rather than a list of dos and don'ts. Before drafting: state the contract — one reader and one promise — and choose a structure whose sections are joined by cause rather than sequence. While drafting: vary sentence length, keep the actor in front of the verb, prefer verbs to nouns made from verbs. After drafting: run a pruning pass against a fixed list of filler phrases instead of reading for general quality.
How do I make my writing clearer? +
Clarity is usually a structure problem wearing a sentence problem's clothes. Check the order first: if a reader does not know why they are reading a paragraph, no amount of polishing will save it. Then do the mechanical things — shorter sentences, active voice, concrete nouns, and reading the whole thing aloud to find every place you stumble.
Is passive voice always wrong? +
No. It is right whenever the actor is unknown, irrelevant or deliberately hidden: "the files were deleted overnight" is the honest sentence when nobody knows who deleted them. The problem is the unconscious passive, which drains energy and conceals responsibility by accident. Use it on purpose or not at all.
How much should I cut from a first draft? +
Ten per cent is the traditional figure and a good floor. What matters more is cutting against a list rather than against your feelings: search for specific filler phrases, delete them all, then check whether anything broke. Almost nothing ever does, which is precisely why the list works better than judgement.
Do these rules apply to fiction? +
The contract and the structure do, exactly. Rhythm and pruning apply differently: a novel can afford a long, slow, deliberately overgrown sentence in a way a report cannot, and sometimes must. The distinction is intent — a professional breaks a rule for an effect they could name, while an amateur breaks it without noticing.
Run the pass on something you wrote last week
Seven points, ten minutes. You will not need convincing after the first one.
Start writing free