How Not to be Boring: 8 Tips for Writers

Be honest. Don’t pretend you know something you don’t, feel something you don’t feel, or are something you’re not. Just be heart-exposingly honest and readers will appreciate it. Honesty is never boring.

Write your passion. 

Write what you love. Write what you are committed to. Write about the topics, stories, people, issues that get your heart aflutter or make your pulse race. When you write your passion it comes straight from your heart. Passion is never boring.

Don’t be too serious.

I’m not saying you can’t write about somber topics, but even when you do there’s room for a little light-heartedness. What everyone always remembers about the funeral is the joke that Uncle Richie told about the time…. Use humor to make your point whenever possible. People who don’t take themselves too seriously are never boring.

Write to a friend.

 

 

Address all your writing to someone you care about. If you care about your reader, the reader can sense that. They will recognize your friendliness. Kindness is never boring.

Write more action, less musings; more dialogue, less description.

When you are reading a long, brilliantly written, heavily layered book and it starts to get exciting- do you skip over the dense, long descriptive paragraphs and race to the action? Me, too. When you start reading a new book, do you wait with baited eyes for some dialogue? Me, too. Dialogue and action are (usually) not boring.

Try to mention animals.

I wrote a blog about organic life with children for nearly ten years and gathered a few hundred faithful followers in my 500+ posts, and then two years ago, I started writing a blog about my foster dogs and in less than a year had 3000 followers. People like animals. Whenever possible, include an animal. Animals are never boring.

Be open; share your life.

When a writer gets personal, it’s always more interesting. You’re asking a reader to take precious minutes, possibly hours, out of her day to read what you’ve written- the least you can do is be willing to share some of your life with her. Tell stories of your life, your family, your kids, your dog (animals!). People like it when you get personal. An article on toilet cleaning would be interesting if it included the story of when your three-year-old flushed an entire bottle of olive oil. Personal is rarely boring.

Don’t mention the weather.

Elmore Leonard includes this in his ten rules of writing and he’s right. Unless you’re writing about a tornado chaser, no one cares what the weather is doing. Weather is boring. Don’t mention it.

Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to know more about me and my writing (I’d be so flattered), check out CaraWrites.com.

If you love dogs, visit my other blog Another Good Dog which details our adventures fostering rescue dogs (and you know it won’t be boring because – animals, right?)

Blessings,

Cara

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