100 ways to improve your writing - Gary Provost 2019

Mimic spoken language
Ten ways to develop style

Writing should be conversational. That does not mean that your writing should be an exact duplicate of speech; it should not. Your writing should convey to the reader a sense of conversation. It should furnish the immediacy and the warmth of a personal conversation.

Most real conversations, if committed to paper, would dull the senses. Conversations stumble; they stray; they repeat; they are bloated with, you know, like, meaningless words; and they are often cut short by intrusions. But what they have going for them is human contact, the sound of a human voice.

And if you can put that quality into your writing, you will get the reader’s attention.

So mimic spoken language in the variety of its music, in the simplicity of its words, in the directness of its expression. But do not forfeit the enormous advantages of the written word. Writing provides time for contemplation. Use it well.

In conversation the perfect word is not always there. In writing we can try out fifteen different words before we are satisfied.

In conversation we spread our thoughts thin. In writing we can compress.

So strive to make your writing sound like a conversation, but don’t make it an ordinary conversation. Make it a good one.