Success Advice

3 Books to Help You Learn How to Write Better and More Effectively

Published

5 years ago

Nov 13, 2019

Manisha Sukhyani

books that will teach you how to write better

Image Credit: Unsplash

“It’s been 2 years since I left writing, how would I start it again?” I cried to my friend. Telling him how I failed to generate regular income from sources other than writing, and how I am drowning in 1 million dollars of debt. I left writing because I felt it was the core reason for my depression, but I was totally wrong. It was not the writing that triggered my stress hormones, the real culprit was not knowing “how to write and grow”.

Hearing my story, my friend told me that continuing writing is the only way to get rid of my debt before I go bankrupt. I asked many of my writer friends “how to write”. They all said the same thing, “Find your voice”. I am not a believer in learning something just based on your voice. I believe that there is a formula for learning everything. For example, for my diet, I learned to eat small portions every two hours. Local homemade food. This is a timeless strategy. I wanted something like this for my writing.

In my writing-free days, I was reading like hell, learning everything that came my way, including stock market, psychology, diet, exercise, etc. From there, I got the idea and thought, “If I am able to learn everything from a book, why not learn how to write better?” My debt motivated me to learn writing quickly and start immediately, which is how I found three timeless books on how to write. Thankfully, all three books were short and to the point, which helped me get started with writing immediately. You don’t need experience to learn the formula discussed in the books.

Book 1: 2K to 10K Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron

The title sounds like something one can implement to write faster. And the doubt to write before you learn to write faster crawls in. But trust me, this is the elixir of writing. In her book, Rachel first teaches you how to write.

How to begin? She shares a timeless formula which applies to all types of writing including fiction, non-fiction, advertisement, blogs, or whatever you dream of. Here’s the formula from Rachel Aaron: Setup – Action – Resolution

First, you show what’s going on (setup), then something happens (action), and at last you come up with a solution (resolution). Take any blog, advertisement or novel – everything revolves around this simple formula.

For experienced writers, this may sound too basic. But for me, the formula was no less than a godsend while I was drowning in debt. From the day I completed this book, I started applying for various freelance writing jobs. I convinced myself that I have to offer a free writing sample before I win the trust of clients. Within a week of my book completion and job application procedure, I landed my first client with regular pay for 5 straight months.

But I didn’t stop there. I knew my writing was missing something, which took me to my next popular book.

Book 2: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Most writers have read this book and always keep it on their shelves. I did the same. An Amazon reviewer suggested that the second part of the book is worth a treasure for writers, while the first part is full of Stephen’s story. Desperate to get more writing projects, I skipped the first part and completed another writing course on sentence structure and the essentials of writing.

Where Rachel Aaron teaches the surface of writing, Stephen King peels a few deeper layers. He teaches you how to show instead of simply telling the story. He also suggests keeping sentences shorter and trying to go for “noun + verb” sentences to keep writing simple and easily understandable. Another tip I liked the most about editing is: Editing = “draft – 10%”. After reading this and submitting samples for free, I landed 2 more clients. One regular while the other gives me a blog once a week.

After 3 months, I was able to pay 80% of my bills. I was happy to reach that stage but I was still running out of money. And a few times, I received complaints of poor grammar. I apologized to them and bought a paid version of Grammarly. At the same time, I started non-stop practice of grammar with my third book.

Book 3: The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.

When I received this 100-page book, I fell in love with its teeny-weeny silver-colored texture. It’s so cute and small that I spent an entire day admiring its beauty. The next day, I started learning each grammar lesson.

To be honest, it was boring. But I had to do something to keep my writing away from language errors. So, I took notes of each lesson. Slowly, I started editing my own work as per the grammar rules, and soon enough, my clients’ grammar complaints reduced.

I still use the paid version of Grammarly, simply because you can’t remember each and every grammar rule. It’s a matter of constant reading and writing which takes years to master. Until then, I keep learning the grammar from this book and edit my articles as per the discussed rules.

Walking on the Path of Growth

Even today, after getting published on high-quality sites, I still swear by these 3 books. But I never stop learning from other writers. Being a writer, I realized that writing wasn’t my only issue, it was maintaining the schedule of constant writing and improving on it day by day. So, I subscribed to Medium for daily writing tips. From there, I never stopped learning. I pitch to high-quality sites with various topics, even if I get rejected. It gives me a challenge to improve more and a published article as a reward.

P.S. My debt is decreasing and my writing is improving day by day.

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Manisha Sukhyani

Manisha Sukhyani is a professional freelance writer with 6+ years of experience. She offers writing services to businesses of all sizes. In leisure time, she loves to share writing tips, online marketing stories, and psychological facts. Reach her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Success Advice

How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements

Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.

Published

1 week ago

Dec 4, 2024

Addicted2Success Editor

Image Credit: Midjourney

Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.

There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.

Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.

Embed the strength of AI and ML.

AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.

According to CyberGhost (CG) bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.

ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses.

In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.

Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities

Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased.

Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information.

Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place.

In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.

Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development

You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.

You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.

Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.

Developing key skills to achieve goals

Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.

Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.

Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.

Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.

Development/Coding Knowledge

Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.

Hacking proof framework

There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.

Communication Abilities/Soft Skills

Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:

Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.

Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.

Agile Implementations

It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.

Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds.
Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them.
Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.

Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.

Conclusion

There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.