How to develop better writing skills?

As an operator , I have to deal with copywriters almost every day.

When promoting a product, you need to write product copy; when doing an event, you need to write event copy; when asking development colleagues to create an event function, you also need to write a requirements document; even when setting up a community , you need to write recruitment copy and group rules.

In every process of contact with users, text is the main medium for disseminating information ; even if it is made into pictures or videos, you need to have picture copy and video script first, in which case you also need to be able to write.

Therefore, it is a great advantage for operations personnel to be able to write good copy.

I have met many people with writing talents. They can write tens of thousands of words every day. It seems that their inspiration never runs out. The texts they write are beautiful and fluent, and always entice readers to read deeper.

However, I am not such a gifted writer.

When I first started writing articles a few years ago, I had no idea what to write. I wrote slowly and tiringly. After I finally finished, I would feel sick when I saw what I had written and didn’t want to read any further.

So how did I improve afterwards?

The underlying logic of learning writing skills

I think there are several keys to learning a skill:

• 1. Distinguish between good and bad : Have standards to know what is good and what is bad, and what specifically makes them good.
• 2. Timely feedback: Feedback helps you know what you did well and what you did poorly, so you can make improvements.
• 3. Repeated training: With learning goals and feedback, turn surface cognition into subconscious behavior.

These three words are a bit abstract, and can be understood as follows when applied to the specific matter of writing:

Distinguish the pros and cons

It means being able to distinguish what kind of articles are good and what are bad.

For example, in articles written for public accounts , beautiful writing is not the most important factor. Instead, smooth and attractive writing is more important.

An article that is flowery but full of unfamiliar words and incomprehensible is far inferior to an article that is easy to read and has clear logic.

Therefore, we must first have this judgment standard so as not to get the direction of learning wrong.

Timely feedback

Be able to see your shortcomings quickly and make adjustments. Otherwise, if a person practices blindly and keeps repeating past mistakes, the improvement he can make will be very limited.

Therefore, there are some people who insist on writing diaries. Although they practice writing a lot, they never get timely feedback from the outside world. A lot of the content is written for their own satisfaction, and apart from improving their writing speed, there is almost no improvement.

This is like a person learning to put on makeup without a mirror. If he doesn't know whether the previous action was right or wrong, the next action will only be wrong.

Repeat training

The important thing about ability is not knowing it, but mastering it, and being able to use it naturally whenever needed.

If you can use it naturally, you don't have to remember the method too much, but can use it naturally.

For example, when typing, we need to look at the keyboard to find the letters at the beginning, but after a period of repeated training, we can type directly and quickly without having to think about breaking the words to be typed into letters, nor do we need to think about where these letters are on the keyboard.

As long as the brain thinks of what words to type, the hands can type out a string of words very quickly.

The principle behind this is that, through repeated training, some superficial cognitions are transformed into subconscious behaviors in the brain.

The same goes for writing skills. It was very difficult when I first started writing. Basically, I needed to think about every sentence and how to express a meaning.

After a period of correct training, you will soon find that your ability to express yourself in writing is gradually improving, and you can write down the ideas you want to express quickly and fluently.

To sum up, there are three key points to learning writing skills: distinguishing the pros and cons, timely feedback, and repeated training.

Effective self-improvement exercises

To possess the three key points mentioned above at the same time, the best way to learn is actually to hire a private coach with strong writing skills.

This coach can develop a learning route according to the students' aptitude, correct homework and provide timely feedback, and formulate practice tasks to supervise learning . With this kind of coaching, the speed of writing improvement must be quite fast.

However, this is not realistic for most people. Who has so much money to hire an expert? How could an expert have so much leisure time to practice with a newbie?

So is there a way to improve yourself without relying on another expert?

There is such a method. I call this method that I have developed through practice - silent imitation .

Please note that it is "silent imitation" rather than " imitation " because there are some differences in operations and effects here.

To help you understand, I will use an analogy that we all learned to draw when we were young.

When we were young and learning to paint, one of the things we liked to do was to find a piece of slightly transparent paper, cover the painting with it, and then draw directly according to the lines that came through.

Paintings that come out of this kind are usually better looking, because the painting being traced is already good!

However, this is the least effective thing in learning to paint!

The reason is that when tracing, one only pays attention to whether the lines are drawn accurately, without observing and mastering how to draw specifically, and there is almost no timely feedback .

Even if the copied painting turned out well in the end, it gave me the illusion that I had good abilities .

You who still haven't learned how to draw, did you do this when you were a child?

Another better way to learn painting is "copying", which means placing the original work on one side and a blank paper on the other. By observing the composition, brushstrokes, and colors of the original work, try to copy it exactly on the other side.

In this process, you can tell at a glance whether the painting is realistic or not. When you draw differently, you can observe and think about what exactly is different, whether it is too light or too heavy. This is a visible and timely feedback.

While obtaining timely feedback during comparison, if you can constantly summarize specific techniques, the efficiency of this self-study process will increase exponentially.

"Copying" is much more efficient than "tracing", but there is actually a more effective learning method, which is "silent imitation".

One problem with copying is that the whole process is based on a comparison with the painting, and many specific layouts, compositions, and techniques are directly copied. It is very likely that you have not actually mastered them. Once you deviate from the subject of copying, it will be difficult to draw it.

The "silent imitation" method is to observe the painting you are studying carefully for a period of time, carefully analyze its composition and techniques , and you can also write down some key points in a notebook.

When starting to "copy silently", cover the original work and use your memory and the key points in your notes to copy a painting out of thin air.

Then compare it with the original painting. After doing this, you will find that many things that you thought you understood very well, you actually did not really understand, and you will also find many details that you did not observe.

This kind of learning efficiency will be much higher than "copying" and "tracing". Of course, it will consume more mental resources in the process, and it is not easy to persist.

How should we use “silent imitation” to learn writing skills?

• 1. Choose an article you like and select a paragraph (100-300 words) that you want to imitate. Carefully analyze the framework, style, and writing method of the article to see how they use words, construct sentences, tell stories, and give examples.
• 2. Sort out the core ideas, arguments, and story outline of the article.
• 3. Close the article, and based on the core ideas you have sorted out, recite the wonderful paragraphs based on your own impression.
• 4. Compare the original text with the paragraph you wrote, see what the differences are, and summarize them (be sure to write them down).

Let’s take a simple example to demonstrate this learning process.

Mimi Meng has a very popular workplace article called "I have 10 workplace experiences worth 1 million, but they're free today." Due to space limitations, I will just imitate the title here.

After reading this article and based on the main idea of ​​the paragraph, we might write a title like "Sharing some valuable workplace experience."

After comparison, you will find that this title has many techniques worth learning:

• 1. Use "10" instead of "some" or "many". Be clear and specific and give readers clear expectations of what they can expect.
• 2. Replace "valuable" with "1 million" , the sense of value will be much stronger . Readers in the new media environment do like this kind of title.
• 3. "1 million" and "free today" form a contrast and conflict, making readers more curious and want to read .

You can learn so much from just a very short title. What if you learn from famous masters through imitation for a long time?

This is indeed a very good way to train your writing skills. The next step is to take action.

Increase action output

I know so much, but I still can’t live a good life. I know so many methods, but I still can't do anything.

Sometimes, the reason why you haven’t learned a skill is not because of a bad method, but because you haven’t invested enough.

The reason why most people fail to learn spoken English is not because the method they mastered is not good enough, but because they give up after practicing for a short while.

Learning to write is like losing weight. The process consumes mental resources, and it is easy to give up after doing it for a while.

Are only super self-disciplined people able to succeed? Is there no hope for lazy and procrastinating people?

I'm not afraid of being laughed at by you, I'm also a person who likes to be lazy and procrastinate.

When QQ Space was very popular, I started thinking about writing, but I didn’t really start writing until the benefits of public accounts were almost gone.

Until I joined a check-in group called "Tianhei Writing Group". There was no specific guidance on writing in this group. Its only function was to urge everyone in the group to write more than 500 words.

You have to punch in every day. If you don’t complete it, you must send a 10 yuan red envelope in time, otherwise you will be kicked out (killed after dark), and you have to pay a few hundred yuan again to get in.

Although human nature has a "lazy" side, it also has a "loss aversion" side . Thinking that you will lose a 10 yuan red envelope and registration fee for no reason will force you to find a way to complete the task no matter what.

Even if you are not satisfied with what you wrote that day, this at least ensures that you maintain the amount of practice and slowly form a habit.

After a month of torturing myself by checking in on my writing, I was finally able to write an article that didn’t make me feel sick. After posting it on Zhihu and WeChat official accounts, I started to explode.

I realized the benefits of group check-ins very early on, and I once formed my own self-discipline group, forming the habit of getting up early and writing summaries. If I didn't finish, I would consciously send red envelopes in the group.

I gained weight after marriage, but I started exercising by checking in on the WeChat group and lost weight in one month. This made me gradually realize a misunderstanding that many people fall into - "learning mysophobia" .

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder will think: "If I really like this thing, I will definitely spend a lot of time on it. I didn't do that thing well, not because I can't do it, but because I don't like it that much yet."

As a result, they greatly overestimate their self-discipline ability, give up quickly when the time comes, and make many excuses for themselves.

When I was a child, I heard many inspirational stories, such as "Hanging the head on the beam and piercing the thigh with a needle", "Borrowing light by drilling a hole through the wall", and "Using a bag to reflect the light of the snow"; they are all about celebrities who love reading.

These stories made me feel that I should improve my self-discipline by cultivating my passion for something. I also gradually developed a love for learning, and I believed that natural passion is good, and that passion that requires external supervision is not good enough.

Later, after entering society, I found that others only care about your results and not your process.

If you are good at speaking English, you are great. Others don’t care whether you have learned it through hard work, or someone forced you to learn it, or you have studied abroad. As long as you can learn English, it is good enough.

If your high school teacher was extremely strict and cruel to you, and finally forced you to get admitted to Peking University or Tsinghua University, although this result is not as perfect as that of a super self-disciplined academic god, so what? Do you mind now?

It will definitely be very happy!

I want to tell you that this is how I have been spending the past two years. I am also a person who lacks self-discipline, but I am still in that writing check-in group, forcing myself to keep writing.

Although I lost a lot of red envelopes in the process, I also accumulated a lot of words and developed the habit of writing every night.

The unexpected benefit was that I built a personal brand through writing, made a lot of money, accelerated my career development, and met many celebrities.

Human nature is inherently lazy, and some things just need to be pushed, which is very worthwhile in the long run.

Conclusion

The above is my experience of how I trained myself to improve my writing skills. To sum up, it is to master scientific and correct training methods and increase yourself the motivation to take action. After training for a period of time, there will definitely be improvement.

Writing is the most valuable skill I have mastered in recent years. I hope you can have it too.

The author of this article @飞鱼船长 is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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