There’s no secret to writing. Get rid of words you don’t need, talk like a human being, and think about what you’re writing beforehand.

It’s literally that simple. Write like you talk. Use active verbs. Get rid of adverbs and adjectives. Short, succinct sentences are king in this land.

That’s it people. Stop looking at writing like this lost art that only a select few have mastered. There was no ancient scroll passed down from the Gods to men. Capiche?

On another note, let’s take a look at why contractions are awesome.

Ahem.

Which one would you say to your friends?

“Let us go to the swimming pool because it is too hot and we should not stay inside all day.”

“Let’s go to the swimming pool because it’s too hot and we shouln’t stay inside all day.”

My goodness. If robots do takeover, and there’s strong evidence suggesting that’ll happen, then the first sentence is a likely representation of how they might communicate.

Lifeless. Boring. Not fun to read.

Isn’t that one of the point of words in the first place? To be FUN?

Words can either be the salt and pepper to our lives or the cold, dry piece of minced meat your blind grandmother gives you at dinner. It breaks my heart just thinking about it.

As writers, we should be excited to sit down and write words. It’s fun. The paper doesn’t fight back. The paper doesn’t tell you that you shouldn’t use contractions. The paper doesn’t give a flying falafel who the target audience is.

For God’s sakes people, be yourself, okay? That’s how you write. You don’t write by making sure every comma is in its place, and that there is there’s no contractions. You’re focusing on the wrong things.

Focus on how it makes you feel. I don’t care if it’s a jumbled mess of letters, fragments, and god-awful penalties of grammar. Make me feel something. That’s how you write.

My last piece of advice is for those in school. You know why you aren’t getting A’s on your paper? It’s not just because of your grammar, or because your points don’t exactly line up with your thesis.

Try this. Write it with some passion. I don’t care if you’re writing about the science behind paint drying (ugh, that sounds horrible). You just might reach the human inside your teacher. The human that gets excited when somebody else is excited, and suddenly grades the paper through that perspective instead of a bored, robotic teacher working into the late hours of the night.

Try that. Write to inspire, to excite, to feel alive.