Help! My writing is boring!

How do I improve it?

Do you worry that your writing is boring? I think we all do, at times. We worry that no one’s going to want to read what we’ve written. And we worry that if our writing lacks personality, that people will think we’re boring too.

It’s a horrible confidence sapping feeling.

Boring can mean lots of different things. Sometimes we use it for writing that is flat and colourless. But we also say use boring for anything that makes us switch off because it's difficult to understand.

People describe things as 'boring' when they mean 'this didn't connect with me.'

As uncomfortable as it is though, a worry that encourages you to think about how your writing will be received can be a good thing. It shows that you’re thinking about your reader, and wanting to write something that they’re going to appreciate. It makes you want to improve your writing and do something about it.

And the good news is there’s lots that you can do make it more engaging.

How NOT to improve your writing

However the ‘my writing is boring’ worry can lead you up some really unproductive alleys. Suddenly you’re back at school being told that you need to increase your vocabulary. Longer and less everyday words get gold stars from the teacher, so that must be the way to go. So you write haltingly, with a Thesaurus at your side, trying to find cleverer ways of saying ordinary things.

But still your writing isn’t better. Now it’s boring AND overcomplicated.

So maybe you think it’s not for you. Some people can write and others can’t and that’s that.

Do you have to be a natural?

Are some people naturally good at writing? Well, no one is born knowing how to write. We all learn it. And I believe anyone can learn to do it better.

The things that make writing enjoyable and rewarding for me are not all to do with writing itself. They’re to do with listening, music, comedy, and from stories from everywhere. I am fascinated by words – the shape and sound of them – the way you can put one against another and paint a picture in someone’s mind – it’s a kind of magic.

I do crosswords for fun. I shout at the radio when the writer’s made someone in the Archers say something they’d never say. I get furious when Boris Johnson tries to mangle another Ancient Greek reference into his blusteringly pompous announcement.

I’m super-sensitive to words. Like the Princess in the fairy tale, a pea-sized wrong word can make me feel uncomfortable through seventy-five layers of mattresses.

But I don’t think you have to be like me to get better at writing. It’s probably better for you if you don’t! You really don’t have to be a word nerd to communicate well.

The biggest gift you can give to your writing is to change its intention. Don’t worry about being boring, and never write to impress. Make clarity your aim.

Use the simplest words whenever you can. You want your reader to understand what you’re saying. If you use a thesaurus to write and your reader needs a dictionary to translate, you’ve made it far more complicated than it needs to be.

8 ways to improve your writing

Be a writing pathologist

Find a piece of writing that you like and pull it apart. Count the words in the sentences. Look at word length. Look at the way the words are ordered within the sentences. Look for techniques like repetition that the writer might have used for emphasis. Look at the lengths of the paragraphs. See how the writer moves you on from one idea to the next. Read it out loud to yourself so you get a feel for its rhythm.

It might feel seamless, but the seams will be there if you look.

And once you know how they’ve done it, you can apply the same technique to your writing. Play around with what you find. Swap your nouns and verbs into other people’s sentences and test the effect. Playing is a great way to learn and to improve.

Be more aware

Become more curious about words and look at the different effects they can create. When you’re reading something and it gives you a little jolt - that shivery feeling when a piece of writing really connects with you - stop and look at how the writer did it. Did they capture something you were already thinking? Did they make you see something in a new way? Did it make you laugh? Did they make you feel as though you were there? Did they paint a vivid picture in your mind?

Start noticing good writers’ tricks of the trade, and play around with their techniques.

Be personal

Put more of yourself in your writing and you’ll make it more interesting. It’s hard to look away from writing when we feel we’re really getting to know somebody, that they’re revealing something of themselves. Honesty and vulnerability keep people reading.

Be active

If you’ve spent a lot of time writing reports, you’ll have been encouraged to write in a passive voice. It makes your writing more formal and objective. It takes the heat out of whatever it is you’re writing.

Changing the tense of your writing can give it an instant lift from dull to dynamic.

Making it active, rather than passive makes your writing more direct.

– e.g. The subject of an active voice sentence performs the action of the verb: “I ran 10k.”

The subject of a passive voice sentence is still the main character of the sentence, but something else performs the action: “10 k was run by me.”

Read it out loud

A conversational tone of voice is the holy grail of business writing. You want your words to be as easily absorbed by your reader as they would be if you were chatting to them. No filter of artifice, just me talking to you, with nothing getting in the way.

The’ conversational voice’ is a tricky one though, and it trips a lot of writers up. It implies you just write exactly as you talk, and that’s not true. Anyone who has ever spent any time at all transcribing real conversations will know that they’re a mess of ‘ums’ and ‘errs’ and false starts. They’re not easy to understand at all!

A conversational writing voice is a stage-managed version of real speech. It mimics the best of real conversation – it’s direct, it blends short and long sentences, it includes questions, it’s warm and engaging rather than cool and at a distance.

A good way to see if you’re achieving it is to read what you’ve written out loud. If it’s drifting into a monotone monologue, look for ways of breaking it up. That might mean tearing some longer sentences in half, it could be throwing in an aside to the reader, or maybe you’ll repeat something for emphasis using just a word or two. A word, or two.

If you’ve used words that it’s hard to say out loud, replace them with easier ones. If you stumble saying them, your reader will stumble reading them. Use the simplest words. The ones you’d use if you chatting to your reader, one-to-one.

Don’t worry about dumbing down

‘But I’m an expert!’ you might wail, ‘I demonstrate my expertise by using expert vocabulary in a dispassionate way.’ (I doubt you’d say that, but you know what I mean.) But I’d reply that everyone, experts alike, appreciates people communicating in a straightforward manner.

Of course it depends what you’re writing. Writing something for your peers who all speak the same language is one thing. It’s fine to talk the talk if everyone gets it. But if you’re an expert writing something for a wider audience you’ll need to work to make your writing accessible. And it’s actually a lot harder to make something complicated easy to understand than it is to just regurgitate the complexity. So not only will you make yourself easier to understand, but you’ll be demonstrating an even surer grasp of your subject. Win win.

Write it like an email

No one ever worried about sending a boring email. We just get on with it. If someone asks you a question, you just answer it in the most straightforward way possible. No need for speechifying or literary flights of fancy. Keep it simple.

If the pristine white page is giving you stage fright, write it in the unthreatening space of an email window first.

Do more of it

Writing is a skill, and like any skill, it improves with practice. So write more. Write a journal. Write for yourself. Write every day.

Make proper space for it. It’s much easier to write well without distractions. You’ll find improving your writing improves your thinking, and you’ll want to do more of it.

The rewards of space and clearer thinking will make writing something you look forward to and it will become even easier.

If having some accountability and support with your writing would help you, join me at the Content Writing Club.