When I was a high school student, I thought good writing equals to rhetoric. If I write an essay with beautiful words and expressions, that is an excellent essay. Under this prejudice, my essays looks like beautiful but useless. Too many needless words and expressions makes my writing awful.
After graduated from college, I became a graduate student in the University of the Chinese Academic of Sciences. Then I started take writing seriously. I start a blog and write blog posts frequently. I also publish some of my most satisfying work on Jianshu, I earn a lot of “like” there. This means a lot to me, as a new blogger. I got confidence on writing. What’s more, I understand what makes good writing.
Good writing based on logical thinking. In order to write clearly, I must think clearly and logically. Chaotic logic will make readers confused, that kind of writing is terrible. Here is my trick to write clearly. Every time before I writing, I will think about the big picture of the essay I’m going to compose. I list the ideas as skeleton, then fill the flesh. In this workflow, my works are basic qualified.
Good writing needs patient revision. Unless you are a genius, you cannot write well without revision. Most of us are ordinary people, we make mistakes while writing. To eliminate the flaws, we must revise after finish writing. Check the logic to see if it’s effective. Read the sentence to see if you used the right words. Add necessary ideas you ignored when you were writing.
Good writing needs hard work. Everyone can obtain writing skills through persistent practice. This practice consists two parts: reading and writing. Reading enlarges our scope of knowledge; give us inspiration and materials to write. Only jump into swimming pool can we learn to swim. Writing follows the same rule. Good writer practice over and over.
With hard work, patient revision and logical thinking, I believe my writing ability will be improved.