How I Got Better At Writing Content

By high school English standards, I'm a solid B student – A- at most.

So, if you're looking to ace that English assignment...

I'm not your guy...

However, for everyone else who wants to write stuff that's engaging and interesting.

Read on...

By the way, my name is Denzil Duke. I've been writing blogs since 2022, and writing essays since Grade 7.

My goal?

Communicate ideas that matter.

Here are the topics I'll cover:

Having Something To Write About
Read More
Write How You Speak
Respect Grammar & Punctuation
Drafting
Having A Robot Give You Feedback
Writer's block

Have Something To Write About

If you have nothing to write, then don't.

Originally, I wrote this section saying,

"Like any skill, do more of it."

I thought that was the magic sauce that helped my writing.

Until, I read this article by Ryan Holliday...

So You Want To Be A Writer? That’s Mistake #1 - RyanHoliday.net

There are two types of writers, Schopenhauer once observed, those who write because they have something they have to say and those who write for the sake of writing. If you’re young and you think you want to be a writer, chances are you are already in the second camp. And all the advice you’ll get from other people about writing only compounds this terrible impulse. Write all the time, they’ll tell you. Write for your college newspaper. Get an MFA. Go to writer’s groups. Send query letters to agents. What do they never say? Go do interesting things. I was lucky enough to actually get this advice. Combine this with the fact that I was too self-conscious to tell people that I wanted to be a writer, I became one in secret. I’m not saying I’m great at it or anything, but I am a bestselling author at 26. I have a column with a major newspaper. I get paid to write professionally. A fair amount of aspiring writers are nice enough to email me questions about becoming a writer. I usually have the same answer: Well, wanting to be a “writer” is your first mistake. The problem is identifying as a writer. As though assembling words together is somehow its own activity. It isn’t. It’s a means to an end. And that end is always to say something, to speak some truth or reach someone outside yourself. Deep down, you already know this. Take any good piece of writing, something that matters to you. Why is it good? Because of what it says. Because what the writer manages to communicate to you, their reader. It’s because of what’s within it, not how they wrote it. No one ever reads something and says, “Well, I got absolutely nothing out of this and have no idea what any of this means but it sure is technically beautiful!” But they say the opposite all the time, they say “Goddamn, that’s good” to things with typos, poor grammar and simple diction. Good writing saves nothing. On the other hand, a deep, compelling or stunning message can float writers who struggle to even complete a sentence. So if you want to be a writer, put “writing” on hold for a while. When you find something that is new and different and you can’t wait to share with the world, you’ll beat your fat hands against the keyboard until you get it out in one form or another. Everything that is good in my writing came from risks I took outside of school, outside of the “craft.” It was sleeping on Tucker Max’s floor for a year. It was working as Robert Greene’s assistant. It was working at American Apparel, watching the office politics and learning how to get stuff done. It was dropping out of college at 19. It was saying yes to every meeting and introduction I got, and hustling to get as many as I could on my own. It was reading dozens of books a month. It was going to therapy. It was getting into pointless arguments. It was having friends who are smarter than me. It was traveling. It was living (briefly) in the ghetto. I was able to write about the dark side of the media because I put myself in a position to see it firsthand. All these things gave me something to say. They gave me a perspective. They gave me a fucked up writing style that makes my voice unique. They gave me opinions that tend to piss people off. It also gave me money and the marketing experience to make my projects a success. I don’t know the first thing about how to write (as you probably noticed in this post). I nod along and pretend that I know what things like “subject” and “predicate” and “passive tense” actually mean. I mean, I think I have an idea, but it hasn’t held me back so far. To quote Schopenhauer again, “to have something to say” is “by itself virtually a sufficient condition for good style.” I’ll take grade school dropout writing passionately in his prison cell over some empty, superior Yale MFA any day. Part of what I’ve said here is my opinion. There are many ways to become a writer and though my way worked for me, you may prefer a different route. So you can take that part or leave it. But another part of it is an undeniable change in the economics of the business of writing. See, it used to be that getting “published” was the hard part. You had to impress some gatekeeper and that gatekeeper was an agent or an editor at magazine, at a newspaper or at a book publisher (all of whom were typically trained writers). Well, today there are essentially an infinite amount of outlets to feature your writing. And no matter where you ultimately do get your writing out, you’ll have to bring your own audience with you anyway. Getting published is easy. Getting anyone to care? Well, that’s the hard part. What matters more now than any other single thing is that what you’re saying is different–that it’s interesting, that it provokes some response from people. You’ll only accomplish this if you’ve got something you have to say. Better yet, you need to have something that you can’t NOT say. If what you’re writing is a compulsion rather than a vehicle for your display how smart and well practiced you are. So think about it one more time. Is it that you want to be a writer? Or it’s that you have these things inside you that you want very badly to communicate to people and writing is the best way to do it? Getting the answer to that question right is the day you really become a writer. . Want to learn more about writing? Check out WritingRoutines.com and the free PDF “12 Essential Writing Routines To Help You To Craft Your Own.” This post originally ran on ThoughtCatalog.com. Comments can be [...]

RyanHoliday.netRyan Holiday

Essentially, writing is a means to an end.

Not the ends itself.

An author produces his best work when he is itching to communicate his ideas. To convey his truth to the world.

"If you want to be a writer, put “writing” on hold for a while. When you find something...and you can’t wait to share with the world, you’ll beat your fat hands against the keyboard until you get it out..."

The message and conveying your internal dialogue is more important than the 'act of writing'.

This ties into a podcast I was listening to with Mark Manson on the Iced Coffee Hour.

He said to write about things that generally flow for you. Stuff that you can easily write about:

Experiences
Passions
Learnings

As Ryan mentions in his article, the good in his writing comes from reading books, taking risks, travelling, hustling, having smarter friends.

Living a well-lived life.

If there was ONE piece of advice to improve your writing,

DO MORE SHIT

Read books because you will never be able to meet and spend uninterrupted time with the thoughts of so many brilliant & unique people. – Mark Manson

Reading other people's writing will help improve your thinking. For writing is the marking down of thoughts.

To read is to be temporarily possessed by the author with his thoughts.

Reading, therefore, is like becoming an apprentice to a master-craftsman.

Though, read without the expectation of outcome.

If you read in order to become a better thinker and writer, not for the sake of reading itself, there's only so much motivation...

Find a genre of text that YOU genuinely like to read.

The point of the activity is the activity itself. And maybe one other benefit: the different perspectives you get on life.

So, if you're a self-improvement junkie, don't read to get some benefit out of it.

The actual benefit is the reading itself.

(Admittedly, I have read on and off. It'd be a great replacement from doom-scrolling on YouTube.)

A Forbidden Technique...

You can read multiple books at the same time.

Unlike school, you don't have to finish every book you start reading.

Shocking, I know!

I take this idea from Naval Ravikant that some books just have a central idea and are riddled with just examples.

Take the meat. Spit out the bones.

However, if you do come across a book that you are engrossed in by its language or ideas, don't stop yourself from finishing it.

(Kindle is great for this)

Write How You Speak

Writing and talking are two different arts.

However, I find my writing becomes engaging if it sounds like how I speak.

So, writing becomes a matter of how filtered and refined you want to be.

This indistinguishableness between writing and speaking is what made my grades fall in English class.

But, produces more engaging stuff than any A standard English exemplar.

Unlike speaking, in writing you have the opportunity to choose what you want on paper.

Respect Grammar And Punctuation

Although you have permission to write as if you spoke, it does not give you the right to fully disregard the rules of English writing.

People will tune out to your writing if your work is riddled with mistakes; making it unreadable.

It's selfish for us to pick up the pieces where the writer is responsible for the correct form of writing.

However, if your work is engaging enough, people will overlook your technical mistakes.

The message is valued over the execution.

Use The Drafting Process

There have been times where I'll write a 1000 word article to then look at it again the next day with new eyes.

"A sentence can change here. I'll rearrange that. I don't need this part."

Is this the best way to communicate my ideas? Sometimes, my writing will go all over the place.

I will hop back and forth from section to section, adding bits at a time.

Hell, I'll flip between different articles and scripts if I'm really in a rut.

It's like cooking.

Ideas need to marinate before putting it in the oven and served on a plate called 'publication'.

Have A Robot Tell Your Writing Sucks

Now, I don't use ChatGPT to write entire articles.

What I do ask of it is suggestions on making the article better.

A language model as a proof reader is a viable solution for feedback on your writing.

For example, where I fall short is being concise and overelaborating on details that don't add to the overarching idea.

Especially with telling my own personal stories, I try writing every possible detail thinking it's important.

It's not.

The only details that are important are the ones that push the story forward. Other details can be left to the interpretation of the reader/listener.

Find your writing blind spots. An unbiased algorithm can help with that.

You Don't Have Writer's Block

From what I've read, writer's block originates when one's filter becomes over-restrictive.

What do I mean?

You fear that what you write will be badly judged. Thus, you stop yourself from starting in the first place.

Write everything that is on your mind.

The filtering should happen after you get the raw writing down. Because, refining should not be your job at the start of the process.

It will stop you from writing at all. And, a lot of students get discouraged by what feedback they get when in the drafting process.

(I remember throughout primary school how I would cry because I got feedback on my work.)

So, What Have We Learnt?

Before you start writing, have something to write about.
Read more to mainly get perspective
Write how you speak
Respect grammar and punctuation
BUT get away with it if the MESSAGE is GOOD
Draft your ideas
Get a robot to tell your writing sucks
Filter less of your ideas