Thursday, March 26, 2015

How can I improve my sentence construction or flow in general writing?


Can anyone suggest resources or techniques I can use to improve my sentence construction when writing? I am a native English speaker and fairly well educated, but confess I didn't pay much attention in English class at school, something that's biting me in the behind now!


In recent years I have made efforts to write more regularly (mostly non-fiction such as a blog) and some technical writing at work, but I tend to find my writing isn't particularly nice to read. I find my sentences are either too long, too short (and therefore paragraphs have no flow) or I use commas or words in the wrong places. I am often able to improve things by re-reading and editing them the next day, but rarely do I end up with something I feel is engaging to a reader.


I do read a lot myself so it's not like I can't tell what good writing is, and yet because the writing is good you don't really notice it and the story takes over - this is what I would like to achieve, even if only in small doses.



I know there are resources online, but they tend to be one extreme or the other: either basic grammar rules that I do generally follow, or just suggest to keep writing and somehow it gets better - but I don't see how this can happen if I don't have some guides or lessons to learn.




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