4 ways to freshen up your writing

If perpetual deadlines leave you and your copy lifeless, here are four ways to breathe vitality back into your work—and your words.

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Sometimes, all that copy can blur together—and it can become challenging to make your prose fresh.

Here are four quick tips to help you keep your writing lively, interesting and inspired:

1. Get to the main event. “Too many pitches, blog posts, news releases and even emails back into the information and take too long to tell the reader what the central idea is,” says Ken O’Quinn, founder of Writing with Clarity. “If you feel it’s taking a long time to get to your point, your reader will feel the same way.”

One culprit is a natural tendency to tell stories or share facts chronologically.

“Beginning/middle/end works for storytelling, but not for most email, articles, blog posts and pitches where the goal is to get to the point,” O’Quinn says. Too often, an extended set-up can read like the text version of throat clearing.

His advice is to cut straight to the middle or end of your core message the moment you start typing. This should save time and keep you—and your reader—from getting bored.

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